


Sometimes Fate Don't Smile

by icarus_chained



Category: Original Work, Vampire: The Masquerade, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: 1940s, 1950s, Acceptance, Alliances, Anarchs, Camarilla, Childe/Sire Bond(s), Conflicting Loyalties, Crimes & Criminals, Debts, Detective Noir, Detectives, Gen, Kidnapping, Loyalty, Mob war, Organized Crime, Rescue, Sabbat - Freeform, Scheming, Uneasy Allies, Vampires, Violence, ambiguous setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-06 14:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11038257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: Michael Rains is a private eye, one who looks out for the little guy, and a little thing like getting Embraced by a Nosferatu and condemned to haunt the night ain't gonna stop that. Poking your nose around some places in this city can get dangerous, though, vampire or no vampire, and there's a war loomin' on the horizon. Gonna get messy around here soon. Some guys just ain't got any luck.





	1. Luck and Long Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I've read a bit more of the main source book now, and had a bit of fun trying out some character sheets, so ... have a random 8000 words of loosely inspired VtM fic? Because I'm panicking for RL reasons right now and apparently that seemed sane. Um. I can't really promise a much better grasp of canon this time, though, I just ran with the idea of Nosferatu Noir. *grins sheepishly*

It's a fact of life, you know, some people just get all the luck. Some people, fate goes out of its way to be nice to 'em. Lines up all the chances for 'em, keeps 'em nice and clear of all the bad stuff goin' on out there. Some people, they got it sweet. The rest of us poor schmucks, we just gotta make the best of the shit sandwich. Fact of life, that's what it is. 

Fact of unlife, too. People don't mention that so much. We like to pretend we don't got to worry much about luck. Big, bad vampires, able to take on the world, right? Ain't none of us sissy enough to be scared of fate lookin' at 'em funny. 'Course not. Hah! Yeah, right. Whatever you say, kiddo. You just keep thinkin' that. Fact of the matter is, fate screws us over or sweetens our deals just as much as it does mortal ones. More, probably. If you got it good out here, you're probably good for a good long way. If you got it bad, though, then chances are you got it really, _really_ bad.

Me, you know, I ain't got it so bad. Ain't got it so _good_ either, but I ain't got it bad. Sure, got a mug on me like a hundred miles of bad road, can't go down a street without people screamin' or leggin' it as soon as they clap eyes on me, but that's just the way it is for my kind. Sewer rats, yeah? Nosferatu. We got hit with the ugly stick right from the get-go, nothing we can do about that. There's ways around it, so long as you ain't too worried about your social life or nothing. Or your creature comforts either, but then I didn't have too many of those back when I was pretty either. That kind of shit costs money, and I ain't never had too much of that. The whole private eye gig don't tend to pay too much. Not if you got morals, anyway.

An' I do, by the way. Got morals. Even now. That's important to me. I'm tryna hold on to that. Gonna keep that as long as I can, monster or no monster. Might be a butt-ugly bloodsucking creature of the night, but that don't mean I gotta shit on people who don't deserve it. There's enough shit out here without people messin' around just for the hell of it.

That's why I do what I do, yeah? Well, that and habit. Once a private dick, always a private dick. Just tend to get a different flavour of customer now, is all.

Or not so much sometimes. I mean, bloodsuckers, yeah, but you get those in mortal flavour too, just not quite so literally most of the time. You got a different range of problems with Kindred, got a bit more of a supernatural spin, and yeah, when we go bad we can go _real_ bad and in real nasty ways, but still. You gotta lot of the same, too. You got your mobs and your hatchetmen, you got your off-the-track numbers, you got your poor schmucks just tryna make it from night to night. You got your sharpers tryna play ya every which way, and you got your poor saps just genuinely in need of a hand. Trick is tryna tell which is which, just like always. Trick is makin' sure your mistakes don't get ya killed. Again.

He was pretty nice about it, though. My sire. The whole killin' part. He did it nice and gentleman-like, I gotta say. It was a nightmare and a half, yeah, but most of that wasn't his fault. That's just the way it happens for us. He showed me the ropes and all afterwards. Didn't hold no grudges about me pokin' around where I wasn't wanted. Guess he wouldn't, though. Kind of a thing for us, pokin' around. Must have liked my style, or I guess I wouldn't be here, huh?

So that's me. Michael Rains, private dick, professional poker-arounder. Always worked for me, little upsets like pokin' a vamp and gettin' whacked aside. I got me a terminal curious streak, _real_ terminal here or there, and I guess I just like helpin' people too. I like lookin' out for folk, keepin' an eye on 'em, make sure they're doin' okay. I like helpin' out.

I like knockin' some people on the head, too. Them what deserve it an' all. That's risky now, though. It's easy now, sometimes too easy. Always had a bit of a mean streak when pushed, but these days I got a hunger too. Gotta be careful. Gotta be sure I don't take it too far.

But, anyway. That's beside the point, maybe. I wasn't here talkin' about me, I was here talkin' about luck, wasn't I? I was tellin' ya how some people got it, some people got all the luck in the world, and some people ... don't. Some people ain't got no luck at all. Business I'm in, I tend to meet a lot of those. Well. Tend to meet a lot of both, really. The ones who ain't got no luck, and the ones who go out of their way to make their own. The suckers and the players. That's who I tend to wind up battin' for. Against my better judgement sometimes. I got okay instincts, I guess, but there are some real classy players out there. Sometimes you're just gonna get played. Ain't no helpin' it.

Sometimes you know it's happenin', too. Sometimes you _know_ you're gettin' strung along, an' you wind up doin' it anyway. 'Cause they're too big to mess with, maybe, or 'cause there's someone else involved, there's some poor bastard swingin' in the breeze, and fit-up or no fit-up you just ain't gonna leave 'em hangin'. Sometimes, it's a bit of both.

Had a case like that a while back, actually. Not that long ago. Might be educational for ya.

First, you gotta understand, I gotta bit of a rep around here. Folks see me as sort of a freelancer, though if push comes to shove I'm gonna side with the clan first and then the forces of law and order, such as they are for things like us. I try to look out for the little guy, though, and people know it. Don't matter who ya are, if ya need help I'm willin' to hear ya out. I try to stay out of the politics, you know? Keep it street-level or lower, that's me. So I get people from a lotta sides. Not the crazy ones, usually, not the out-and-out monsters among us, but for the big power blocks I'm considered a bit of a neutral go-between. Get a lot of jobs just runnin' messages, I'll be honest, but sometimes if people get a bit lost, wander into unfriendly territory or what have you, folks might send me in after 'em, see what I can see, like that? Shepherd for lost lambs, that's me. Lost wolves, too, a time or two. This job was one of those.

What happened was, I got a message from Aaron Talbot. Don't go public much, me, so face-time tends to be at a premium, but I got mailboxes around the city for when people need to contact me. Did a round one night, I found the same message in about five or six of 'em. Nice message, friendly-like. Pretty cream card, copperplate handwriting. Would I like to drop by the Blue Room at my earliest convenience, Mr Talbot would appreciate a word. 

I about shit a brick. He ain't necessarily a big player, Aaron Talbot, he ain't been in the game that long, but he's what you'd call an up-and-comer. On both sides of the fence, really. On the human side, he's the shadow king of the local mob, sorry, the local _legitimate businessmen_ , and on our side he's a canny blue-blood bastard who's been makin' gentle waves for a few years now. Nothin' pushy, you follow me, he don't overreach himself none, but a slow and steady climb. A man to watch, in other words. And a man to be careful gettin' involved with.

Not that I had much of a choice. He's the kind of person a body don't go makin' casual enemies of. Sure, I could blow him off, just not show, and in the short term I'd likely get away with it, but long term that kind of thing tends to be dangerous. We've got long memories, we monsters, and Aaron Talbot was the kind to develop a long reach to go with it. It don't extend too far below the surface, the sewers are Nosferatu turf and nobody else's, but it could make topside difficult down the line. That might not affect the likes of my sire too much, but someone like me, someone tryna stay as human as I can, that could be bad. 

So, naturally, I moseyed on down to the Blue Room to see what old Castellan had to say. That's what the humans call him, by the by, at least the ones far enough into the mob to know he exists. Castellan. The governor, the guardian of the keep. He likes that, I think. It ain't exactly Prince or Primogen, but it's a good name for a guy who's heading that way.

It's a nice joint, the Blue Room. Classy sort of a place, the kind with a proper restaurant, big band jazz, nice dance floor. Lounge and bar, club rooms upstairs. Party up front, business in the back, but respectable-like. Least on the surface. Real legitimate business, I'm tellin' ya.

I had to go in around back, of course. Face like mine, I'd clear the place inside a minute, and that wouldn't have been very friendly. Or safe, but that's neither here nor there. I went in the back entrance. Ghoul there showed me up. Bit of a snooty sort, that one. Wasn't surprised. Club like that, big band jazz, up-and-coming singers, I was gonna guess there were a few Artistes hanging around. That kinda attitude tends to rub off. I didn't mind it none. Bigger fish to fry and all that. I was there to see Mr Talbot. Didn't have to give nobody else the time of night.

Got shown in to this nice big office. All browns and golds, warm lamplight, earthy-lookin'. I'm generally not so hot on interior decorating, given that I live in a literal rathole these nights and a metaphorical one even back when daylight was still a thing, but it was good. Nice. I liked it. Gave the man points for class. Gave him a few more points for a warm welcome, too. Man stood up behind the desk, thanked me for comin', held out his hand all friendly-like. Didn't so much as flinch, even though I'm clammy as a stiff and a bit greenish at the best of times. Man's got class, got nerve, got a poker face fit to go for broke. I gotta give him that.

"Mr Rains," he said, gesturing for me to sit down in his nice clean leather chairs, also without a flinch. "Thank you for coming. I wasn't sure if my message would reach you in time."

I sat down, because of course I did. You don't pass up comforts when they happen on ya, or a chance to test a Ventrue's tolerance either. I raised an eyebrow, though. Took off my hat, treated it serious-like. "Time's an issue, then?" I said. That tends to be bad. Time bein' an issue means a hot deal, and more than likely a lot of antsy folks on either end. It's hard to be cautious on a hot deal. Clients tend to get upset at ya.

He paused, though. Thought it over some. Enough to get me hopin' it wasn't that bad.

"Not ... exactly," he said, weighin' his words like they cost money. Which, admittedly, they probably did. "I'll admit, Mr Rains, I'm not actually sure how urgent the matter is. For my own part, though, I'd rather have answers as soon as possible. If he is in trouble, I don't want to leave him out there any longer than I have to."

Well. _That_ was interesting. I bumped the other eyebrow up to join the first. A lost sheep, yeah, or possibly a lost wolf, and one who'd apparently vanished all sudden-like. Enough that the boss had no idea what'd happened, or even if anything _had_. Huh. Interesting, all right. And potentially rather dangerous.

"You got a body gone walkabout?" I asked. Polite, you know. Interested. Mr Talbot leaned back in his chair. He studied me, looked at me all thoughtful-like. He's got a hell of a stare, that man. He sucks you in, has you hangin' on his every word. He don't necessarily look like much. Forty-ish. Tired. Dignified. A hard-working man, you'd say, with a bit of something noble about him. He don't look like much, or at least he shouldn't. But he looks at you, and he's just ... you end up thinkin' about some tired, ancient warrior, lookin' out for his people. He's got _presence_. Hah! He's got Presence all right. He looks like a man you oughta respect. You don't watch yourself, you wind up givin' it to him whether he's earned it or not.

Don't know if he has, by the way. Earned it. All this time I still don't know. He's got a nasty streak. Got a habit of usin' people. Comes down to it, though, you can say that about most of us. Monsters all, ain't we. So I don't know. He's friendly, is Aaron Talbot. He's polite. He'll give respect where respect is due. You gotta watch yourself, though. He sucks you in before you know it. And if he wants you screwed, you ain't never gonna see it coming.

"I'm not sure, Mr Rains," he told me softly, that night in that warm brown office. "Certainly I haven't seen him in some nights, which would generally be unusual for him. I have unfriendly neighbours, particularly a certain rabble to the east. It would not be beyond the bounds of possibility for something untoward to have happened to him. However ..."

He trailed off, either for effect or because he was genuinely pondering how to phrase the thing delicately. With Talbot, could go either way. I made inquisitive noises anyway, trying to gently hurry him on a bit. Not wise, necessarily, but it wasn't like I had all night. He raised a cool eyebrow my way, but capitulated after a second or two.

"All right," he said, sitting up straight again. "I suppose I should be blunt, shouldn't I? We're both busy men, and time may well be a factor. You have a point, Mr Rains. All right. Here's how it is. One of my men, and by that I do mean Kindred, vanished about three nights ago. I don't actually know what happened. When he didn't show up for the second night running, I sent a few boys 'round to his place. It didn't look like there was anyone there, though that can be hard to tell with Simon. There are hospital clean rooms less sterile that his spaces tend to be. Still. He wasn't there, and asking around got nothing either. Nobody's seen him for at least three nights."

I nodded some. "But you don't know that he got taken. 'Cause, what? He's got reasons to bug out sometimes? He up and vanishes every once in a while?"

It happens, you know. Especially with the likes of us, but humans too. Flakes is flakes, after all.

"Yes and no," Aaron Talbot told me, steepling his fingers while he looked at me. "Simon is generally a creature of habit. He keeps to his routines. Almost religiously, you might say. It is unusual to have him vanish. But he has ... he has some problems. Ones that can make him a bit irregular at times." He paused again, and then sighed heavily. "Again, please bear with me. I am trying to be blunt, I just don't often talk about this. Simon is a Malkavian. It's normally not that much of a problem, some minor annoyances aside, but he does get ... agitated sometimes. He has these ... fits, I suppose you could call them. He has this thing about the baser elements of our nature. The Beast. It disturbs him. If something happens, if he gets too agitated or feels he's been pushed too close to it, he can ... take it badly."

My eyebrows crawled back up. Malkavians. Oh boy. "Take it badly," I repeated carefully. "Okay. Take it badly how, exactly?"

Castellan sighed. "Like I said," he said tiredly. "He has fits. He becomes incoherent. Sometimes he ... hits himself." I musta looked funny at that one, 'cause he tried to explain. "It's some sort of compulsion. Sometimes I think he's trying to beat the Beast back inside him. He hits himself in the head. Repeatedly, almost like a rhythm sometimes. He taps patterns normally, when he's just a little anxious or upset. It's worse when he's bad, though. And it does ... distract him. He finds it hard to keep of track of his surroundings in that state. He can wander, without realising where he's going. He can ... get himself into trouble."

And the odd thing was, the man looked genuinely distressed describin' this to me. I don't mean like, 'mob boss with flaky underling' distressed, or even 'look concerned for the cameras' sort of distressed, but honest-to-god upset and concerned. Like the man mattered to him. Like he was honestly worried for his little nutjob subordinate.

"... Sounds like a lot of work," I said, quiet and careful-like. "Man must be good at something, to be worth puttin' up with that kind of fuss?"

Again, not a safe question. Up-and-comers, you gotta be careful pryin' into their affairs. They can get twitchy about it real, real easy. Talbot only looked at me wryly though. That impression again, that tired old warrior keepin' watch over his people. He offered me a little smile.

"I could bullshit you," he said, with a bit of humour. He's got a good sense of it, does Talbot. Only lethal the odd time or two. "I could tell you I'm just the sort of man who takes care of his people. Even the awkward ones. It might even be true. You strike me as the suspicious type, though, so I don't think I'll bother. I am fond of him, yes. I value him, and I'll value his return." He paused, studying me again, and then he nodded slightly. "You have a reputation for honesty, Mr Rains, and impartiality too. You're the sort who doesn't let people get hurt for no reason. I'll be honest with you, then. I need you to find Simon for me. I need you to bring him back to me if you can, and if you can't I'm going to need you to tell me who got rid of him and why. Once you've done that, if you've any sense at all, you're gonna want to get out of my way real fast, because I'm gonna want words with them about it."

I blinked at him. Mostly for the baldness of it. The straight-up threat. You gotta understand, players like Castellan, they don't really _do_ upfront. They come at everything side-on, delicate-like. It's all webs and angles with them. It's why I stay away from the politics. If you get someone like Talbot to the point of making an open, blatant threat, then you have _really_ gone and pissed him the hell off.

"Who the hell is this guy?" I blurted out. Not even botherin' to be careful any more. We were in the slinging threats stage anyway. "You're gonna go to war for him? What the hell's he mean to you anyway?"

Talbot smiled coldly. Nothing amiable about it at all. "He's my accountant," he said, mild as milk and colder 'n February. "A very talented one, too. You'd be amazed what he can do with numbers. And money. Let's never forget the money. A very valuable man to have, Simon White. But that's not why he's important to me. Or not just, at least." He leaned forward, those tired eyes suddenly black and icy cold. Predatory. Here was a monster, yes sir. Don't nobody forget it. "He's my childe, Mr Rains. Adoptive, of course, but his own sire wasn't anything to write home about. Made him and abandoned him on a whim, as I understand it. They don't matter anymore, if they ever did to start with. He's mine now. And I want him _back_."

Possessive. Oh boy, you better believe it. Make a note, kiddo, don't ever mess with Aaron Talbot's things. He takes it personal-like. He gets _upset_.

Wasn't gonna act like I was scared, though, was I? I _was_ , mind you. Like I said, Aaron Talbot ain't nobody to piss off all casual-like. Man scares the hell outta me. But still. Got some pride, don't I? Got some backbone. Ain't gonna _act_ like he does. Man like that, you give him an inch and you ain't gonna get nothin' back.

"He coulda just eaten a sunrise," I pointed out. Gently, a bit. The man was upset. "If he gets like you say, if he has trouble tracking things when he gets bad, he mighta just stayed out too long, not realising what he was doin'. I'm gonna look for him, don't worry, but ... there might not be anyone to blame at the end of it, you know? He coulda just got bad, and then got bad luck."

'Cause some people do, don't they. Some people just got bad luck. Even just from what I'd learned so far, this poor little nutjob sounded like one of 'em.

Talbot took that on the chin, too. He flashed back to normal, so quickly I nearly wasn't sure what happened. One second there was this monster in front of me, teeth out and pissed off to hell, and the next there was this reasonable businessman once again. Just a tired, dignified working man, tryna look out for his people. Hell of a switch, I tell ya. Hell of an act he can put on, and I think what scares me most is I ain't sure which bit is which. I mean, I got my guesses, but I honestly ain't sure. Sometimes I wonder if he's acting at all.

"He might have," he admittedly wearily, slumping back into his chair. "Or he might have gone to ground somewhere, still confused, and just hasn't found his way back yet. Or, he might have gotten hurt, or taken, or killed. His haven's on the edge of a bad neighbourhood. I don't mean your sort of neighbourhood. Anarch turf. It normally doesn't bother him much, or me. He grew up somewhere similar. He might look inoffensive, but he's a nasty little knife fighter when he's pushed, and he walks like he knows it. He's hard to get the drop on, too. When he's sane, or at least saner, he's not the sort they'd mess around with. When he's bad, though, he's an easy target. I'm not saying anyone messed with him. I'm just saying it could happen, and I'm concerned, and I'd like you to find out. You're known for a freelance operator, Mr Rains. You can poke around places my boys can't."

And, well, what could I say to that, huh? This shit is what I do, and I don't go makin' enemies I can't afford. And, too, I kinda got his worry for the little guy. If it was genuine, anyway. If what Aaron Talbot was sayin' was true, I could see how Simon White would be the kind of guy you'd tend to worry over.

"Give me his address and I'll have a look around," I sighed. "If someone's got him, I can find that out. If he's gone to ground, too, I can probably find him. If he did eat a sunrise, though ..."

"I know," Talbot said. Sadly, I thought. Honestly sad. I'da bet on it, but it's so hard to tell sometimes what these people really think. "Do your best, Mr Rains. Even if all you can do is tell me what _didn't_ happen. I'll pay you for your time either way. It's been three nights. At this point all I want is to know what happened to him."

So that was that, huh? That was me, an address in my hand, leaving that fine legitimate businessman to brood in his office in peace. I had a job to do. I had a lost little lamb with sharp little teeth to try and bring home. A bad luck kid, who'd gone astray.

First, though, I had to go and find somebody to sup from. I knew the neighbourhood he was on about, you see, I knew what kind of risky business poking around there could be. It's the sort of place a vampire wants to be in the full of his health, if you follow me.

I checked the underground bolt holes first too. Well, I was travelling by sewer to get there in the first place. Might as well, right? It wasn't somewhere I was one-hundred percent familiar with, but I did know a lot of the cellars and hidey holes around that section of sewers. I figured, if the kid was sane enough to head underground before the sunrise, I'd know most of the places he'd've wound up. And, too, check out a few potential bolt holes in case I was caught flat-footed myself. Never hurts to be prepared.

Didn't find the kid, though. Don't think I was expecting to. Thing about Talbot, you see, thing about blue-bloods like that, they might be paranoid but they generally _do_ got a good idea when someone's really gunnin' for 'em. Malkavian or no Malkavian, three nights absence was suspicious no matter how you looked at it. I think I was figurin' on foul play all along too.

Which was why, around two in the morning, I popped open a manhole behind this one particular bar, and climbed up to take my business, or rather Aaron Talbot's business, to the head honcho around those parts.

Hot deals, right? A body ain't always got time to be cautious.

Leader of the local Anarchs was, and still is, a lady by the name of Angela Myers. Bloody Angie. Brujah. She's been around a while, Angie. Older than me for sure. Not sure how she and Talbot stack up against each other, but I reckon she's got a few years on him too. Not that she looks it. Bloody Angie is forever a fresh-faced nineteen, and she ain't necessarily that happy about it either. Nothing gets her dander up faster than people askin' if she's old enough to buy a drink at the bar. Heard she's broken more noses that way than any other. You gotta mind your step around Angie. Like a lotta rebels, she's a bit of a minefield sometimes.

She's mostly decent, though. I mean, as far as my business goes. She'll pick a fight at the drop of a hat, but she ain't sadistic or nothin'. She keeps her boys in line, mostly through judicious use of fisticuffs and the occasional baseball bat. It ain't normal to start findin' bodies around her turf. It ain't normal for people to start vanishin' around it either. If Simon White really _had_ gone missing around here, and through foul play rather than his own lunacy, then it could only mean a couple of things. 

Either Talbot was playin' me, or somebody else was playin' everybody, or Talbot's boys had finally crossed a line somewhere and Angie was proper gearin' for a fight. 

That didn't feel right, though. Generally speaking, if Angie is gearin' for a fight, there ain't nobody that entire end of the city who don't know about it. She ain't like Talbot, she ain't sneaky about things like that. If Angie don't like you, Angie is right up in your face about it, and if Angie's goin' to war with you, she ain't makin' no secret about that either. I'da _heard_ if Angie was goin' to war. The whole damn city woulda heard.

So I was feelin' fairly okay about droppin' by and askin' her about it. I mean, cautious, yeah, people like me tend to be cautious as a matter of course, but not worried about it or anything. Thing about Angie is, if you're in trouble with her, you know about it.

I went in up the drainpipe to the second floor. Angie's bar, the Brass Knuckle, gets a lot of kine customers. She ain't as uptight about it as Talbot would be, but a sewer rat like me still don't wanna go swanning in the front door. Upstairs is for Kindred only. They don't generally get a lot of Nosferatu, most of us around here are Camarilla still, but there's an open window and an upstairs landing if one of us does drop by. Angie's nice like that.

Comin' in the landing, I got met by a pleasant-lookin' older gent in a grey woollen three piece suit. Heh. Word of advice, kid, you ever come across him yourself, play nice, huh? That's Richard. He's Angie's second. Used to be a professor, I think, back in the day. He looks like the biggest boffin you ever saw, but I seen him punch a guy through two walls and a stack of crates one time. Be polite, okay? You'll lose less teeth that way.

"Hey Rich," I said. Hadn't been 'round in a while, but I knew the lay of the land. Rich waved a mild hello. "Angie around? I gotta talk to her."

"She's downstairs," he said, warm and easy. "You wanna head back to the office, I'll go get her for you." A pause, and then: "You look serious. Should I come along with?"

I weighed it up some, but honestly if I was picking a fight I was screwed anyway. No point tellin' him to stay away. Might help keep a lid on Angie, too. Rich is dangerous, yeah, but he's got a slightly longer fuse than Angie does, generally speaking.

"Might as well," I said. "Got bad news, and a favour to ask. You might as well listen in."

He nodded absently. Not surprised in the least. Oh boy. I was starting to feel like a lot of people knew somethin' I didn't, and that ain't ever a nice feelin' for one of us. Actually, come to that, it ain't never a nice feelin' at all. That's the sort of thing gets a body killed, permanent-like. I should know. It's what got me Embraced the first time around.

I went in back to wait for Angie. She didn't take long. Never does. She's a fast mover with a fast temper, Angie Myers. If somethin's up she wants to know about it ASAP.

"Mike!" she cried, thumpin' the door back and swingin' in like a tiger huntin' prey. Don't mean nothing, that. She moves like that anyway. "Trenchcoat Mike, as I live and don't breathe! You old sewer rat, you ain't been around in ages! Thought you'd got all high and mighty on us."

Snorted at that one. "Like that's gonna happen," I said wryly. High and mighty don't sit very well with a face that belongs in a catacomb catalogue. "Been busy, that's all. Gettin' run around downtown and the Towers, mostly. Just haven't had a chance to swing by."

Wasn't a lie. I don't tend to lie much. Keep my peace, yeah, but I'm not much for screwin' with people on purpose. Bad at politics, that's me.

"Yeah?" Angie asked, but like she knew that. Like she knew what'd brought me by this time, too. She had that stand about her. Not aggressive or nothing, but up on her feet, ready to go. 'Cause everybody 'round here knew more than I did, it seemed. I gotta listen to my sire more. I gotta pay more attention to who's been pissing in each other's coffee lately. "So why you comin' around now, gumshoe? Not that we ain't happy to see you an' all."

Yeah. She looked happy all right. Just about ecstatic. Oh joy. I sighed, and thanked good sense that I'd picked the side of the room next to the window.

"Aaron Talbot sent me by," I admitted bluntly, and barely flinched at the growl that rumbled up from her chest. Seen that comin', didn't I. Been a night for teeth so far. "Yeah, I know. He's lost somebody, though, down this end of town. Seemed honestly concerned about it."

Angie barked a laugh. " _Honestly?_ " she scorned, and okay, normally I wouldn't blame her. Ask a blue-blood to be honest, it's like asking a sewer rat to be pretty. _Possible_ , technically, but only with a lot of work, never for long, and not really all that likely. Aaron Talbot talked a good game, but he was still a mob boss at the end of the night. "Come on, Mike. You really got snowed that badly?"

I leaned against the wall next to the window, kept my hands where people could see 'em. Casual-like. Inoffensive, that's me. "Let's just say in this case I can see the concern," was all I said. I cocked an eyebrow at her. "Can't help noticing you're not all that surprised over here. You know somethin' about this, Angie? It ain't like you to be coy about this kinda shit."

She growled again, took a step forward. Didn't pull nothin', though, didn't try to plug me or anything, and Rich pulled her back again a second later. Slow fuse, Rich. Relatively speaking. Keeps the temper on simmer, so when he does let loose he can do it good and proper.

"It's the twitchy little guy, right?" he said, with only a hint of a slow boil around the edges. "Simon somethin'-or-other. Hides down in the basement flat on Ninth. Keeps a knife up his sleeve and another in his pocket. Neat suit, though. Shiny shoes. Hunts down Skid Row most of the time. That who you're lookin' for?"

Well shit. So they hadn't been keeping an eye on the guy at all then, had they. Hell. Maybe caution _woulda_ been the better part of valour this time around. I'd already stuck my foot in it, though. No way out but through.

The window, possibly, but let's save that for a minute yet. 

"You ain't gone and killed him, have ya?" I asked plaintively. "Angie, darlin', I thought you'd give a guy a warning before you all went to war on top of him."

She looked dangerous for a minute there. She looked genuinely, honest-to-god dangerous. Bit difficult to tell which bit of it she was mad about. All of it, possibly. Whatever it was specifically, for a good long minute there she looked like she was pondering tearing my throat out the old-fashioned way. With her _teeth_. She didn't, though. Like I said, I got a rep. No sides, no politics. Just tryna look out for the little guys. After that worrying minute, she simmered down. Just a bit. Just enough.

"If I ever go to war, Mike, you won't be in any doubt about it," she said. Quietly, but with Angie that's the dangerous part. If she's screamin' at you, she's lookin' to pick a fight. If she's whisperin', she's plannin' straight-up murder.

"We pulled him out of a gutter," Rich stepped in. Placid still. For the moment. "Night before last, not too far from Skid Row. He was beat to shit, looked like he was on the edge of torpor if he wasn't already in it. He was conscious, though. We didn't notice that at first. Scared the bejeezus out of Eleanor when he flopped over. He was trying to come up fighting. Had his knives in his hands and everything. Impressed the hell out of her, once she calmed down a bit and stopped trying to reflexively kick his head in. He was unconscious by then, unfortunately. She brought him here. Eleanor likes people who don't let little things like getting beat halfway to Final Death stop them."

Had to nod my head bemusedly at that one. I do tend to admire that in a body myself. Well hell. Good on ya, kid. Talbot had said he was a dirty little fighter when he was pushed, but I wasn't sure I'd expected to find proof. I wasn't sure I'd expected to find _anything_.

"He, ah. He still kicking, then?" I asked carefully. "Night before last, you said. Long time to keep him, and I know Talbot ain't seen him since. Wouldn't have thought you'd go outta your way for one of his boys."

Angie snorted explosively. It actually relieved me a little. Least we were back to the scornful bit of the conversation instead the murderous one. "I wouldn't, normally," she said, and oh, I had no doubts. "Aaron Talbot needs somebody to mind his people for him, he can come down here and try it himself. I'll give him a real nice welcome, guaranteed." Yeah. Yeah, I bet. She'd simmered down another bit, though. She might have looked almost fond. "We like this one, though. He's got some balls. Impressing Ellie ain't easy. We got him fixed up some. Or we tried to, anyway. Physically he's okay. It's up top we're starting to worry about."

Ah. Okay then. So instead of one nasty possibility or the other, we had a mix of 'em then. Talbot'd been a little bit wrong and a little bit right.

"He been hittin' himself?" I asked, leanin' forward off the windowsill and lettin' myself move into the room a little bit more. They raised their eyebrows at me. Damn near in unison. Little eerie, that. "Talbot mentioned it. Apparently the kid gets like that if he's having a bad night. Malkavian, you know? He gets too close to the Beast, he gets a little odd about it. Fight might do it." I paused. "Especially if he was pushed enough that he frenzied. You find any evidence of what he was fightin' at all?"

I hadn't heard anything about any massacres, anyway, and I probably would have done. Like I said, bodies around Angie's turf are rare enough. They're noticeable. Skid Row, maybe not so much, but it wasn't gonna hide the kind of carnage a frenzy might produce. If he'd been pushed that far, somebody shoulda heard. Unless his foe was Kindred, of course, and everything mortal in range had had the good sense or instinct to clear the hell out. Still shoulda heard something.

"We didn't," Angie said, and she was flat and angry again now. "Ain't found _shit_. Pretty sure it wasn't kine. Don't think he was sane enough to clean up that kinda mess. If it was Kindred, though, nobody's sayin' who or what kind or where from. He ain't exactly givin' us anything coherent either. And I _need_ him to." She stepped forward, stepped up into my face. "Whoever they are, Mike, they're on our turf. Not Talbot's, not the Camarilla's, not the Nosferatu's. _Ours_. And until I know what's pickin' fights on my turf? That kid ain't goin' nowhere. Talbot can fucking _sing_ for it."

Aw hell. Nothin's ever easy, is it? Nothin' ever goes smooth out here.

"He's Talbot's guy," I said, but careful-like. Conciliatory. "Might have been on your turf, but it was Talbot's man. You don't know it wasn't aimed at him and not at you. Or aimed at _both_ of you, tryna kick off a war down here so somebody else can come in and mop up. The kid matters to Talbot, Angie. He's already this close to flipping his lid. You gonna tell me you don't think there's a chance you're both bein' played?"

"You think I _care_?" she spat, but I saw that flicker in her eye. She's not stupid, Angie. She might look like she is, all hot air and fists first, but she's not. She's really, really not. You just gotta get her calmed down, that's all. You just gotta keep her cool.

"You like the kid, right?" I prodded gently. "He keeps his nose clean around you. Don't put on airs, don't come messin' with any of ya? You like the way he fights. You wanna shit on him for somethin' that ain't his fault? Just 'cause he's Talbot's? I know you better than that, Ange. You're not the sort who's gonna kick the little guy while he's down like that."

Not unless they stepped on the wrong mine, anyway. From the sound of it, though, Simon wasn't really coherent enough to be managing that just yet.

"We're not looking to hurt him," Rich interrupted. Mildly. "We just need him to tell us what happened to him, Mike. If somebody's muscling in on us, we need to know. If somebody's playing us against Talbot, we need to know that too. If he goes back to Talbot first, then Talbot finds out and Talbot tells us nothing. He needs to tell us first. We can't afford to let him go until he does." He paused, and grimaced wryly. "Not that he's in a fit state to be going anywhere anyway. He's curled up in a ball right now, and anytime anyone goes near him it just seems to make him worse. I'm surprised he hasn't knocked himself back out already."

I chewed my lip a bit. Which is a bit of a stupid move, as a vampire, but it wasn't like my face was anything to write home about anyway. I thought about it some. And then, because I didn't have much other choice, I offered:

"How about I give it a go?" I said lightly. "You never know. New face, might knock something loose. Mug like this one especially. Tends to provoke whether I'm aiming for it or not."

Angie bit her lip too. "I didn't think we were aiming to frighten him any harder," she said. Not quite laughing to my face, but close. "You sure that's a good idea, Mike?"

"Har har," I drawled, but I didn't take offence. Ribbing is good, with Angie, and it wasn't like it wasn't cold hard fact either. "But seriously. I gotta tell Talbot something, and I'd rather be comin' back with his boy in tow. Let me give it a go, Ange. If it works it works, everybody gets something they want. If it doesn't, we're no worse off than if I never tried."

And something must have turned my way at last, fate must have finally eased up on me a little bit, because they both finally agreed. About damn time. Dawn was gonna be comin' up in just over two hours. We were cuttin' it real fine.

They took me down to a store room out the back. Concrete, windowless, fairly solid. Not that the kid was in much of a state to be trying to break out any time soon, but they were being proper careful about him. Coupla guys on watch, checked on often to make sure he hadn't whammied 'em or nothin'. Malkavians. You gotta be careful about that. I don't think he'd gone and tried much, though. He was in a sorry state when they let me in to have a gander at him.

He was a mess. Physically, I mean. Most of his injuries had healed, they'd been feeding him some. Rats, probably. Nothing human when he was so visibly unstable. His clothes were torn to hell, though, which I'm guessing wasn't helping his mindset any. Talbot and Rich had both said it, little guy liked to be neat. Liked bein' tidy. Bein' stuck down here, still stuck with the mess, I don't think that helped him much.

He wasn't beating himself up none, though. Not when I got there, anyway. He was huddled up on the floor, his fingers tappin' out some abstract sort of beat on the concrete, but he wasn't trying to knock his own head in. Angie looked surprised at that. Seemed that was a very recent development. Like since I'd arrived, maybe.

Hard to get the drop on him, Talbot had said. Goddamn Malkavians. He'd heard me comin' the whole way down, hadn't he.

Kid looked up at me then. He wasn't much to look at. Beige, mousy. The sort of face you wouldn't pick out in a crowd. His eyes, though, hit me like a cattle prod along the spine. Folks like me, we tend to pride ourselves on not being seen. I might not be the best at that sometimes, bein' a bit more open and honest than is generally encouraged, but I tend to favour the shadows a lot myself. Those eyes, though. They didn't allow for hiding. They took one sharp, hungry sweep, and came away with the colour of my soul.

Malkavians. Goddamn, _goddamn_ Malkavians.

It worked, though. Whatever it was he saw, whatever it was he picked up. It pulled something loose inside him, tugged some knot into letting go. He slumped back against the concrete wall. His fingers went still and silent against the floor.

"Shadows," he rasped, looking at Angie behind me. "It comes in shadows. Didn't feel it until it was already too late. Meant for you to finish me. Cry havoc! Let slip the dogs of war!"

I froze. I'm pretty sure we all did. Shadows. _Shit_. Weren't nobody didn't know what that one meant. Shadows and catspaws and let slip the dogs of war. Goddammit. The Sabbat was all this city needed.

"Sliced it up some," Simon White went on. A flash in his voice, something childish and terrified and gleeful. "I got it good before it whaled on me." A change, though, spinning straight from glee to horror, his body tensing like a wire. "Didn't want to. Felt the thing inside me. Felt it clawing its way out. Had to stop it. Had to stop it. _Couldn't_."

Oops. Oh boy. But nope, no. We'd spent long enough on that one. I swooped down, caught his hands before he could start again. "It ain't here now," I said, smartly-like. "It's okay, kid. You're not frenzying now. It's gone back to sleep, all right? It's okay. Stay with me now."

And for a wonder, he managed it. Maybe he really had spent long enough trying to bash his own skull in. His hands twitched in mine, fingers tapping relentlessly against each other, but it didn't look like he was gonna need more than that. His shoulders eased back. He came back down out of the grip of his madness.

"I need to go home," he told me earnestly. Desperately. "I have to go home. The Beast can't get me there. It's safe. I made it safe. Me and Aaron. I need to go home."

Aw hell. Poor bastard little monster. Some people, you just gotta feel sorry for 'em, don't ya? Vicious as they might be when they're pushed. Some poor saps just ain't got any luck. But okay. All right. That's what they were paying me for, weren't they. Come down here and bring their boy home. That's why people come to me out here.

I turned around. Looked to Angie. She's decent, is the thing. An angry monster with fists like steel, but she ain't sadistic. She's got a thing about lookin' out for the little guy, same as me. And he'd impressed her some. He might have been Talbot's, he might have belonged to some blue-blood bastard, but he'd pulled his knives when he couldn't win, and he'd tried to get back up when he was down. She liked him. She'd liked him from the start. She'd never have let him stay so close to her turf if she hadn't.

"Get him out of here, Mike," she said tiredly. "Go on. Bring 'im home. You won't make it to Talbot's before dawn, but you got a bolt hole around here somewhere. I know you do. Get him out, get him stashed. We'll get to work on the shadow bastard. I'll drop you a line in a few nights, let you know how it's goin'."

I nodded. "I'll let Talbot know," I agreed softly. "Might even be worth your time to drop him a line as well. He's a bastard, we all know that, but if a Lasombra's come to town he's gonna be one of the first to want to swing. 'Specially since they tried to play him. Not saying you should trust him or anything, but you might get the bones of a truce outta that. You know. Just until you've kicked the Sabbat in the teeth."

Her lip curled, but she didn't disagree straight off. Rich, beside her, looked wearily thoughtful. 

"We'll think about it," he said. "Right now let's get the war averted first. Go bring Talbot's boy on a quick tour of the sewers, Mike. We'll get the ball rolling on the rest."

So that's how that got started then. That's how I got played, that's how I got hooked into this nice little turf war we've had goin' on lately. I told ya, didn't I? Sometimes you just get played. Sometimes you know it's happening, and you let it happen anyway, just 'cause you can't leave someone swingin' in the breeze. Sometimes fate just likes to shit on us, I told you that. Some guys just ain't got any luck.

It could be worse, though. When you think about it. 

You could be Malkavian.


	2. Sewers, Sires and Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael Rains and Simon White, and a tricky conversation in the sewers on the way home to Talbot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there's probably no real reason to continue this, but this scene was stuck in my head, so I figured I'd get that much out at least. *grins sheepishly* Sorry to all.

There's this rule in my profession. Unspoken, but pretty much inviolable. You look out for them what looks out for you. You look out for the little guy, yeah, you look out for people and you take down them what needs takin' down, but when push comes to shove, when the chips are all down, what you do is you look out for your own. Reciprocity, right? Someone goes out on a limb for you, you go out on one back. Someone has your back, you don't leave 'em swingin' in the breeze when their turn comes. You make a promise, you damn well keep it, 'cause betrayals get answered in kind. Job I'm in, trust is at a premium. You got some, you don't shit on it without one hell of a reason. That's the rule.

When I got rubbed out, when I woke up with a horror show for a face and a brand new midnight eternity to look forward to, that rule got worked around some. Little bit. Thing is, though, it _didn't_ get wiped out. You'd maybe think it would, what with vampires an' all, but it didn't. And mostly it didn't 'cause of what _kind_ of monster I am. What kind of monster my sire was. Sewer rats, yeah? Nosferatu. Lookin' out for your own is a rule that holds good for us, if only 'cause we're the literal bottom of the dung heap down here and ain't nobody else gonna do it for us. You look out for the clan, the clan looks out for you. That works out for me, for the way I am. That lines up nice and neat.

Of course, the thing of it is, I like lookin' out for the little guy too. I'm not sayin' I'm a bleedin' heart or nothin', that kinda thing tends to get ya killed out here, but I guess I'm sayin' I get in trouble sometimes. I go out on the odd limb for somebody who ain't clan, and it ain't nobody's responsibility to come out after me. That's fair enough. Takin' risks is my choice, and I ain't gonna ask nobody to go holdin' my hand. 

That doesn't mean I gotta be stupid about it. And it doesn't mean I can't give the home team a heads-up if it's likely to be important later on. Things like Aaron Talbot, Simon White, Angie Myers, and Sabbat incursions on top of it all? That kinda thing is pretty damned important.

So the evenin' after I pulled the kid outta Angie's, after we'd woken up in our little bolt-hole and _before_ I dropped him back off with Talbot, I made a coupla stops and left some messages where people would know to check on 'em later. Just in case, you know, I wouldn't have a chance to tell 'em myself. Not that I thought Talbot was the kind to get reckless like that, but there was a Lasombra in town, you wouldn't know what might happen to a guy. That, and I was kinda conscious that I was bringing his boy back alive, which ... might not have been the plan. His plan, I mean. It was always mine. 

Now, I don't mean I was thinkin' old Castellan wanted his boy dead. I'da laid odds that he didn't, actually. That upset he'd been showing, I honest-to-god thought that was genuine. Still think that, really. It's hard to tell with his lot, but I'da bet quite a lot on it. Nah. The problem wasn't that he mighta wanted Simon dead. The problem was that he'd _expected_ the kid to be dead. He'd figured 'im for a pile of dust somewhere, so he'd given himself a bit of free rein to be honestly upset about it. He'd given himself rein to be _openly_ upset about it, more to the point. Which, now that the kid _wasn't_ dead, might turn out to be a problem.

What I'm sayin' is, I reckoned there might be a middling-to-decent chance that old Talbot might have to suddenly start thinking about who knew how much he cared, and how much of a liability that might turn out to be when the object of said care was still around to be used against him. And I was figurin', if he loved the kid as much as it looked like he did, his first option wasn't gonna be nudgin' _Simon_ outta the picture. It was gonna be nudgin' _me_.

Like I said. You look out for your own first. You look out for everybody else second.

Now, it wasn't necessarily all that likely. Again, like I said, Talbot ain't generally the kind to be reckless like that. He wasn't gonna do anything rash, at least not where he might get caught at it. But we were also bringin' news of a war in the works, and handy-dandy Sabbat assassins knockin' around. Assassins who maybe mighta taken exception to, say, nosy little Nosferatu pokin' around where they weren't wanted. Accidents happen. Folks get unlucky. It could happen, and that's a nice little loose end handily taken care of for ole Castellan. 

It wasn't likely. I didn't really think he was actually gonna do it, yeah? But it was sure possible, so I was makin' certain to hand in my reports before we got to that juncture. That way, even if Talbot _was_ feelin' a bit rash and jumpy, or even if our Keeper pal really _was_ creepin' along behind us lookin' to finish what they'd started three nights ago, I wasn't gonna be leavin' anyone blind and in the lurch behind me.

I looked up from wrappin' the last one up in a waterproof pouch and droppin' it down a particular pipe to find Simon White lookin' at me kinda funny. I blinked at him a bit, wonderin' if it was the repetition, the paranoia or the low-tech method of delivery that was gettin' to him. The warrens are hooked up for phones. I coulda found a pay phone and called in. I just didn't, for reasons that theoretically began with potential eavesdropping Lasombra and more honestly ended with not wanting to get yelled at for sticking my neck out like a sucker. I mean, mostly folks underground are content to let a body make his own damn mistakes and pay for 'em too, but sometimes I think I really try my sire's patience in that regard. I figured I'd wait until I was either safe or safely dead to tell him all personal-like, if ya follow me.

But nah. Turned out it was mostly the paranoia that was puttin' the kid off. That and the fact that I was fairly clearly gearin' up for trouble.

"He's not going to kill you, you know," he said softly, hitting the nail eerily on the head. I'd be inclined to blame his bein' Malkavian again, but I think they've gotta wait a bit in between soul-peeks. I guess I was just being obvious about it. "Aaron. He's not going to hurt you. You're useful. You did what he asked, and it's not your mess. You'll be fine."

Which ... I squashed the first coupla responses that came to mind, mostly because, even bein' a vamp aside, the kid was an accountant for the _mob_ , he had to have at least some idea what kinda shortcuts people like Talbot tended to take through inconvenient witnesses. I mean, he'd know it from the opposite end as I would, way back when, but he would know it. He likely wasn't saying this outta naivety. I hoped not, at least. The other thing that stopped me, though, was an odd bit of emphasis on his part. It's not _your_ mess, he said. Meanin' it _was_ somebody else's. And suddenly I was wonderin' if maybe Castellan was the kind to sort out his liabilities a bit more directly after all. 

Even the ones I honestly thought he loved. 

I straightened up, slowly-like, and looked the kid over in the light of the sewer-lamp. He'd been calmer than he'd been at Angie's. Enough that I was wonderin' how much of his distress with her had been a show, playin' up his weaknesses so she wouldn't push too hard and wouldn't kill him right away. Dangerous game to play, that. 'Specially with Angie. She's got a short fuse and she don't like bein' messed around. Or it coulda been real. Maybe being kept a prisoner, so soon after almost gettin' killed, really had knocked him off-kilter. Hard to tell. He was calmer that evening, either way. Down in the sewers, with just me to keep an eye on him. He looked rumpled and exhausted and uncomfortable, but mostly calm. Resigned. You'da thought him harmless, if there hadn't been a faint hint of fever-gleam in his eyes. Though I guess that part coulda been my imagination too.

"... He gonna be hurtin' anyone else?" I asked. Slowly. Careful-like. 'Cause, see, I get that things like that are pretty common for us. Monsters, yeah? I do know what we are. An' even before bein' Embraced, I'd known what kinda shit people could get into sometimes. Job I'm in, you tend to find yourself wadin' through a lot of that. All the sordid little horrors. Vampires just got more means, that's all, more opportunities, and a long, _long_ time to play 'em out in. It's hard to find a relationship out here that _ain't_ some degree of messed up. I do know that. 

I just find it hard to be witness to it sometimes, that's all. Harder still to be involved. 'Cause a lot of the time you can't stop it. Folks too big to mess with, or bonds laid too deep to be broken. Some of it you can't stop. Some of it, you're just lucky if you manage to avoid it yourself. 

Some of it you _can_ stop, though. Sometimes chances come along, and damned if I'm not gonna try an' take 'em when they do. Like that one. Castellan thought his boy was dead. Mighta got complicated if Angie decided to say anything, but there was still that handy-dandy Lasombra knockin' around. Accidents happened. Kid wanted out, wanted away, that there mighta been the best chance he was ever gonna get, and, regardless of what happened with Talbot afterwards, I'da been inclined to let him take it.

But no. No. 'Cause things always gotta be complicated, don't they? And there ain't no bigger complication than love. Ain't no worse liability in all the world.

Simon White smiled at me, little bit, little crooked sort of a thing, and shook his head. "Anyone ever tell you you're too soft for this, Mr Rains?" he asked, though gentle-like. Pitying. "You should be careful about that, you know. You don't have to worry, though. Aaron's not going to hurt me. He should, probably. He shoulda got rid of me a long time ago. But he didn't, and I'm pretty sure he isn't going to. Not unless someone comes along and takes the choice away from him, anyway." 

His fingers started tappin' against each other again. Soft and slow. His smile didn't shift, though. I blinked warily at 'im. He shook his head.

"It's hard to explain," he said softly, and I was minded of Talbot, back in that brown-gold office of his, angling carefully around his childe's 'fits'. Trying to be gentle, both of 'em, trying to spare someone who wasn't even there. "I wouldn't try, except you got me out of a lot of trouble back there, Mr Rains. I was listening. You got them to let me go. So ... I could tell you a story, maybe? If you wanted. That's what your sort trade in, right?"

... Well, yes and no. It depends on the circumstances, really, or rather the trading partner. But honestly, he didn't owe me nothin'. Talbot'd set me onto him, and I hadn't done nothin' yet that Talbot hadn't asked for. Any debt was owed, transaction-wise, it was Talbot's. But if the kid wanted to trade me a story, I was pretty okay with that. We were tucked into a pretty nice little hidey hole. Most of the message points are, in case people gotta compose 'em as well as drop 'em off. We had a bit of time.

"I'm listenin'," I said, movin' over to slouch against a wall and pay him proper attention. And I was, too. Listenin'. I'd never heard of Simon White before Talbot called me to his office. His adoptive childe, and I'd never heard of the guy. That said to me that Talbot had gone out of his way to keep it on the low-down. Can't say that didn't make me a little bit curious.

The kid lifted his lip at me. Half smile and half threat, I think. It faded fast. He leaned back against his own wall, his fingers tapping gentle patterns against the concrete. His expression got a little haunted around the edges.

"You ever ask why you were made?" he asked softly. Rhetorically, I thought, but he shifted his head slightly, actually looked at me for an answer. "Your sire, he ever tell you why he picked you? Out of everybody in this city, he ever tell you why the one he wanted was _you_?"

An' he didn't mean it happily. I could see that. His hand had curled up into a fist, knockin' patterns on the wall instead of tappin' 'em now. His Embrace hadn't been a happy thing, as much as any of 'em ever are. I'd known that, a bit. Talbot had said his sire had abandoned him. It came across a whole lot plainer that moment.

I couldn't really answer him either. Not because my sire had never told me. He _hadn't_ , admittedly, not straight up or nothin', but that didn't mean I hadn't gotten an idea or two in the time we'd been together. I wasn't a hundred percent certain, but I did have an idea of what he'd been looking for. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was, the Embrace hadn't hurt me the way it'd hurt this kid. Which is a funny thing to say, maybe, when Nosferatu Embraces are notoriously some of the worst you're ever likely to hear about, but it's true. What'd happened to me, it'd ... Physically speaking, I'd never experienced pain like that in my life. I'm not even sure if I remember most of it. There's just this wall, inside my head, pain and tearing and hunger and horror. Like something pulled me apart, slow and steady and piece by piece, taking days at a time, and then glued me back together all wrong. It was bad, yeah? It was really, really bad. But it wasn't ...

He picked me 'cause he thought I'd survive it. My sire. That was most of why. He picked me because he thought I'd make it out the other side. Not just physically, not just in the sense of still bein' kickin' afterwards, but where it matters too. Inside. This is the bit I'm guessin' on, you understand, this bit he ain't ever up and said, but it's somethin' that comes up with him sometimes. He likes people who can get back up. He likes people who've seen shit, who've waded through all the sordid horrors, and still managed to get back up and keep goin' at the end of 'em. I mean, sure, some of it was because I was good at pokin' around, because I managed to tail him at least a little bit. Some of it was how I've got a way of talkin' to people so they tell me things, even now, even with a face like roadkill on the best of nights. But mostly, I'm pretty sure, it was because he saw somethin' that made him think I could live through the change, live through bein' warped into a horror show, and come out of it mostly sane on the other side.

An' I have. Well, more or less. I'm not sayin' it's not hard sometimes, I'm not saying I don't catch a glimpse of my reflection every so often and get an urge to take the end of a broken bottle to it to liven it up a bit more, but overall ... Overall, I'm doin' okay. I ain't got it so bad.

Luck, yeah? Some people got some. And some people really, _really_ don't.

"I don't know, kid," I said, and made it proper gentle for him. "My sire's told me a lotta things, but I guess we never got around to that. I guess you got a point, though. I'm guessing there's a reason you asked me that?"

He snorted at me. Which takes effort, for a vamp, but when you gotta make a point, you gotta make a point. "You could say that," he said, and his voice was about as hollow as the damn sewer. "I guess my point is, mine never told me either. I don't know if Aaron told you. It wasn't meant to happen the way it did. He hadn't told me yet, but he was planning to do it himself. I'd worked my way up, you know. The business. I'm good with numbers, and I'm good with knives. I worked my way through the ranks fair and square. He'd had his eye on me. He was waitin' for the right time. But then ... someone else got there first."

... Aw hell. Yeah, okay. I could see the shape of the thing then. It does happen, you know. Two Kindred want the same childe, one or other gets there first. I've heard of it happening a time or two. Mostly, I've heard how it generally doesn't end well. For anyone, and for the childe least of all.

"She didn't even want me," the kid whispered, his fingers knocking relentlessly on the wall. "At least, I don't think she did. She didn't tell me. She didn't tell me _anything_. I don't even know if it was planned. She was mad, of course, but it could have been planned. I don't know. I just stumbled across her one night. This was before I knew about us, before I knew what she was. I was heading home, going through the back alley, and I caught her feeding back there. I froze. Just wasn't sure what I was seein', I think. She saw me. Dropped the body and looked at me. I don't know if I've ever felt that kind of fear before, Mr Rains. It wasn't natural. She was helpin' it. I know, or at least I knew back then, how to be afraid. How to manage it. I grew up fighting. I did know, once upon a time. But she did something, and it was like ... it ran away with me. I couldn't think. I ran, and she herded me, and we got to a vacant building, and she ..."

He stopped there for a second. Tryin' to calm himself. Takin' the time. Which was good, honestly, because the tattoo he'd been beatin' out against the wall had been pickin' up speed again, and I was gettin' to realise how that was usually a bad sign with him. He cut himself off, tried to stop it before it built to that point again. I waited patiently. After a little minute, he got himself started again.

"She kept me for a while," he said at last, kinda flatly but still mostly un-deranged. "A few nights. Not to teach me anything or ... or even to _say_ anything. Mostly so she could play with me, I think. I still don't know who she was. She never told me her name. Then one night she just up and vanished. Went out, left me alone, and didn't come back. I stayed. For a couple of nights, I stayed. Can't tell you why. Pretty sure I killed somebody at one point. A vagrant. I don't remember all that clearly. After a while, though, I got some of my senses back. Enough to try and go home. I didn't know what'd happened. I didn't know what I was. I just ... I wanted to go back to something I knew. So I went back to the Blue Room. I went to see Aaron. I don't know what I thought he'd _do_ , besides maybe shoot me in the head, but I guess it didn't matter. He used to look out for me, you know? Even before. He got me outta trouble a few times. I guess it was instinct to go and see him."

Yeah. I could picture it, too. Bet that went down a treat. Classy joint like the Blue Room, and this bloodstained, deranged kid comes stumbling in, lookin' to see Mr Talbot. He was one of theirs, though, so they wouldn't have shot him. Hustled him upstairs, more likely. Got 'im outta sight quick, got 'im to the boss so they could try and get what'd happened out of 'im. 

And then Talbot woulda seen him. And Talbot woulda known _exactly_ what'd happened.

"He should have killed me," Simon White said. Soft and earnest, that night down in the sewers. "I don't know if you understand, Mr Rains. She gave him a weakness. She turned me into a problem and then she dumped me at his door. He should have killed me. Whatever plans he might have had for me, they were ruined then. There wasn't anything left worth saving. Worth going to the Prince for, worth asking to stand as my sire. He didn't have to do that. He _shouldn't_ have. You think I don't know I'm a liability? I always was. This thing you just saved me from, this was just the latest. I've been a weakness for him right from the start. And he kept me anyway. You understand that? He looked out for me. Even when I'm ... Even when _her curse_ is making me worse than useless to him. Even when his enemies come hunting for me, and I can't stop them. Even when somebody puts me in a box and tries to use me against him and there is _nothing_ I can do about it. He still ... still tries to help me. He still sends you to get me back." He shook his head. Laughed at me, a cracked, jagged sort of sound. "You worried about me, Mr Rains? You think he's going to hurt me? You shouldn't. Most of the time, you see, it's the other way around."

And it hurt him, you know. It hurt him so much to say it. I don't know, I coulda been gettin' snowed, but I really think he believed it. It's hard to tell. It's always so goddamn hard to tell, with him and his sire both. I honestly don't know which way is up in that relationship. They've both got a usin' streak. Both got a lyin' streak. If either of 'em told me it was night outside I'd honestly feel I had to go and check. But still. Still. There's a part of me does reckon they love each other. Ain't sure if it _helps_ 'em any or if it just hurts 'em both worse, but I do think they really do care. 

"... Why're you tellin' me this, kid?" I asked, real soft and careful-like. 'Cause I was bringin' him home later. I was bringing him back to Talbot and answering for havin' done so. There were hooks dangling in that water, and I was beginnin' to think from either end. I felt like bein' careful just then. I felt like walking softly.

Simon ducked his head onto his chest, his smile creeping back across his face. His hands fell still again, pressed flat back against the wall. He took a while before he raised his head. He took a coupla minutes to think how he wanted to say it.

"I just want you to understand," he said softly. "You're a good man, Mr Rains. I felt that about you. You're a good monster, or you're trying to be. I know I owe you for what you did for me back there. You took a risk then, and you're takin' a risk now. You know it, or you wouldn't be tryna warn people just in case you got bumped off. I know I owe you for that. But you gotta understand. I owe Aaron too. I owe him everything, every chance I'm able to give him. You understand that? You got me outta there, and I needed that, because I need to tell him what's comin'. I need to let him know what's comin' for him, what they were tryin' to make him do. And I need ... I need somethin' else too. I know I owe you already, but I need something else as well."

I paused at that. Thought about it, thought about it slow and careful. Very careful. The kid was wound so tight he was vibratin' while I looked at him, and there was a bit of me couldn't help but think that a body might look like that just before he popped his knives and tried to take what he needed all pointed-like. Because that's the way life works, ain't it. Sometimes it ain't just the Aaron Talbots or the Lasombras of the world you gotta worry about. A scared, crazy kid with a knife can do you just as well, if you don't keep an eye out properly. Or you him, I guess, but I don't like doin' things that way. I will if I gotta, but I don't tend to like it.

"... What is it you need, kid," I prompted him eventually. Softly. Nice and softly. Off the track, this one. Well, Malkavian. They tend to be, don't they? But let's try this the easy way while we can. "I'm still listenin'. I got time. Why don't you tell me what's on your mind."

He fought with it some. I was watchin' him. I saw it happen. His chin came up after a minute, though. Those cattle prod eyes again, though it was mostly just steel and a hint of madness that made 'em dangerous this time. He pushed himself forward, came away from the wall to stand in front of me, all lean, mousy lethality of him. It wasn't a threat, though. I didn't think so, anyway. I'm good at threats. I've seen a lot of 'em. This was desperation instead.

"You're going to help, aren't you," he said, lookin' up at me. "The Lasombra. The Sabbat. You're going to help the Anarchs try and stop it. You like them, so you're gonna watch out for them. Aren't you."

And there was an edge on that. A hint of something steel and shiny. Mighta been just anger, mighta been just 'cause they'd kept him prisoner, but I was wakin' up some. I was wonderin' if there wasn't more to it than that, something a little more subtle. He was Talbot's childe, after all. He'd probably had some instruction in doin' these things sideways-like.

'Cause, you see, something like that can be a dangerous sort of accusation sometimes. Helpin' out Angie and her sort. I was supposed to be Camarilla, right? I was supposed to have picked a side. Got presented to the Prince and everything. Camarilla all the way, if only 'cause my sire joined 'em before me, because the few of us sewer rats knocking around this city had done it first. Wasn't gonna screw things up for any of 'em first thing outta the gate, was I? Clan first. Caution and the better part of valour. I'd said my piece and paid my dues.

Though I do believe in law an' order. Private dick, right? I do believe in tryna keep things on the level, tryin' not to spill all our filth and blood out onto the rest of the world. It's just the politics I've got a problem with. Always have, always will. That's why I'm a _private_ detective and not, say, a police one. That's why I got a rep around here. Freelancer. Go-between. Clan first, and everybody else second. Whoever wants help. Whoever needs it. An' it works for people. Even ones like Talbot, may a few of the higher ups too, though I don't get a lot of direct custom from them. It works. So long as it's useful, it works. So long as people feel like _lettin'_ it work. But then somebody says something. Like, say, Aaron Talbot, or Simon White. Somebody decides they don't wanna do that no more, someone feels like takin' hard and fast promises outta me. And that could be me in one whole helluva lotta trouble.

Mighta figured on that. Simon, I mean. Tryna protect himself and Talbot, takin' a gouge outta me to manage it. I had somethin' on them, I knew things nobody else knew, but he had somethin' on me too. Somethin' pretty much everybody knew, yeah, but something his sire had the clout to do somethin' about. So it'd even out, wouldn't it? Everybody kept quiet, nobody got hurt. Probably shoulda seen that comin', shouldn't I?

Except that wasn't the way he went. Well. It was ridin' under it, a bit, he'd been a mob accountant first and then a vampire after that. Blackmail was old hat for him, about as much as it was for me. There was a bit of that in there, all right. But what he actually said was something different. What he asked was something else.

"We can help you, you know," he said, quiet and earnest. "I can, and Aaron too. You had a point, talking to that woman. A Lasombra coming to town, trying to manipulate him, trying to use me to get to him. Aaron is going to want to swing first. All I wanna do is make sure you're going to help him too. Not just them. I know they don't own you. Nobody owns you, at least not yet. I just ... want to make sure we're getting the same amount of help, that's all."

And oh, you bet I narrowed my eyes at him for that one. He really was comin' on all sane and sideways all of a sudden. Had a finger tappin' lightly against his thigh, but he wasn't _nearly_ so battered or so maddened or so helpless as he'd spent a lot of the last coupla nights pretending. Or he was, maybe, and _this_ was the pretending part, actin' all smooth and sneaky even when he was still quiverin' inside. I couldn't tell then, and I still can't. No wonder Talbot had wanted him for his own. Like sire, like childe. The trick with either of them is figuring out which bit is pretend and which bit isn't.

He did kinda have a point, though. Or a sort of a one at least. I do like Angie, when she ain't tryna rip my head off. She's tough and she's mostly honest and she does go out of her way for the little guys when she likes 'em. I really do like her, honestly more than I like Talbot most of the time.

That doesn't necessarily mean I'd back her in a war. Not for loyalty's sake, anyway. If it was somebody who needed fightin', yeah, but I'd do that with anybody. Same with Talbot. The man might scare me, I might not trust him as far as a mortal could throw him, but if it came down to it I'd back him against the Sabbat in a heartbeat. Or, well. A mortal heartbeat, anyway. Against a Lasombra, I'd back either one. Against _each other_ , though. Against each other, I reckon all I'd do is get the hell outta the way, and see who needed working with when the dust settled.

You look after your own first. You help people out when you can, you go out on a limb for 'em if you're there and it needs doin', but you look out for your own too, first and foremost. An' for me, from that first night, from that first moment I woke up with a horror show for a face and a tired, friendly monster leanin' over me, my own meant clan. Not 'cause it's the way it's done, not 'cause anyone bought me or owned me or persuaded me. Just 'cause we line up that way, me and my clan, me and the rest of us sewer rats. We got some history and some beliefs in common. I was wading through shit long before my sire caught up with me. I got a front row seat to so many of the sordid little horrors of the world. Still reckon he musta seen that. Still reckon that's why I'm here.

"... I'll help him out, kid," I said, slow and careful-like once again, but this time more careful like _deliberate_ than careful like worried. "Don't you worry about that. I know which side my bread's buttered on up top. You need me, either one of you, you know how to drop me a line. Just like Angie, huh? There's a Lasombra in town. There's an incursion goin' on. I figure we're all gonna need each other real soon. You need help with that, you send for me, don't worry." 

He studied me again, and time-frame or no time-frame I honestly did wonder if he was peeking at my soul again, or at least trying to. But nothing happened, in the end, and he subsided after a moment or two. He rocked back on his heels and let himself slump a bit.

"I'm sorry," he said, and it sounded tired and flat and honest. Whether it was or not was a different question, but it _sounded_ battered and up front. "I am, I really am. You got me outta trouble, and I know I owe you better. He sent you, though. He sent you to look out for me, and I owe him first. I always do. Something's coming, as bad as the first time. I gotta look out for Aaron first."

I slumped a bit myself, and reached out carefully to nudge him on the shoulder. Gentle-like. Didn't want nobody goin' for their knives or anything. "Don't worry about it," I repeated gently. "I know the drill, kid. I'm not gonna hold it against ya. Loyalty, yeah? We're all on the same side, but push comes to shove we all got something we're gonna fight for first and foremost. It's okay. You look out for your own. I know the story."

The kid tilted his head at me there, and there was that glimmer of something in his eyes again. Madness, maybe. I swear, there are times he really does scare me as much as his sire. People say you gotta worry about Malkavians anyway. Nutjobs, all of 'em. Off the track. You never know what way they're gonna jump, even the ones that seem relatively sane. Looking at Simon White, his eyes especially, there's times I think I agree.

"I will help you, you know," he said, hard and desperate-like. "I owe you too. Aaron's first, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna forget. You need something, you need _my_ help, you come to me too. Okay? You pulled me outta somethin' bad. I'm gonna remember that, and Aaron will too. It's us first, but if you need somethin' ... one of us will try and see you get it. I promise."

And boy. Boy oh boy. You know, sometimes people owing you things can be a helluva lot more dangerous than them not. You gotta be careful what favours you end up owed, and by who. Aaron Talbot and Simon White. Aw hell. That was gonna come back to bite me, I just knew it.

But okay. We'd spent long enough hammerin' it out down there. Whatever happened at the end of it, whatever Talbot thought about his childe's promises and whichever way he jumped at me knowin' what I knew, it was well past time to bring Simon home. Bet Talbot had been gettin' twitchy an hour ago, if not more. It was time to get the kid home to his sire and then, provided I was still kickin', get me home to get yelled at by mine.

Though, honestly? By the end of that particular conversation, I was beginnin' to think my sire might have a point. Sometimes it just don't pay to go stickin' your neck out. Sometimes it just don't pay to go above ground.

Sometimes, you go out on a limb for somebody, it's your own damn fault if they saw it off behind ya.


	3. Honesty and Politics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael Rains has a long conversation with Aaron Talbot, and realises somewhat to his horror that he's playing politics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The requested confrontation with Talbot. I think I had fun with this one -_-;

Now, what I wanna tell ya, there's this thing about honesty, right? An' that thing is, it ain't always sensible. Bein' honest. It ain't always sensible, it ain't always _safe_. If ya wanna last for a good long while around here, there's this point where in theory you oughta shut up and let things go the way they're goin'. Let people think what they wanna think, let 'em do what they're gonna do. You look out for your own, you let everybody else sort themselves out. Knowledge is power an' all that. Sometimes you oughta shut up and hoard it.

Thing is, though. I say 'in theory'. There's a point where you shut up, _in theory_. The reason I say that is, personally I ain't so good at findin' that point. An' yeah, sometimes that really don't work out too well for me. 

Sometimes, though, that really ain't the point either.

When we finally pitched up at the Blue Room again, it was the same snooty ghoul from the other night showin' us up the back stairs. I wouldn'ta noted it much, except he was just as snooty with the kid as he was with me. Now, that coulda been just 'cause Simon smelled like the sewers almost as much as I did just then. Four days in the same suit, couple of 'em in a concrete box and one of 'em in the sewers, will do that to ya. Still. Bit incautious of the man, I'da said. Either that or a pretty bad sign.

Simon didn't pay it any mind, though, so either it was a regular thing with this particular ghoul, or else this close to Talbot the kid just wasn't in a mood to give much of a shit. Which, fair enough. I was just gonna keep an eye out for myself, that was all.

Talbot was waitin' for us in his office. Us, specifically. I'm guessing somebody downstairs had rung up when they spotted the kid. The man was already out around his desk and halfway across the office by the time we got ushered in the door. I shuffled sideways nice and quick, kept in along the wall and gave Talbot and Simon a clear run at each other. I think Talbot only half noted it. He'd already grabbed the kid by both arms to give 'im a once-over, check that he was all in one piece. When Simon smiled at 'im, tired and hesitant, Talbot gripped him by the scruff of the neck instead, tugged him in so he could rest their heads together. My eyebrows about crawled up under my hat, but the kid closed his eyes, leaned into the gesture like a travelling man come home at last.

"Jesus Christ, Simon," Talbot hissed eventually, propping him back to glare at him good and proper. "What the _fuck_ happened to you? I thought you were _dead_."

... Well. Not to put too fine a point on it or anything, I guess?

The kid grimaced a bit there, and tilted his head to send a speaking glance my way. Either to say I had the answers, or just to remind Talbot I was still there. Thanks kid. Nice of ya. It was interesting to watch, though. Talbot followed his childe's gaze, and somehow managed to be almost subtle about straightening up and boxing away the bulk of his concern. He didn't hide all of it, given that he angled himself slightly between us in the course of standing back, but in just a few seconds he'd managed to go from 'panicky sire' to 'mildly concerned businessman'. It was impressive, was what it was. An' a little bit tragic, too.

An' then there was me, with both of 'em starin' at me. Talbot for answers and the sharp reminder of business still to be done, and Simon ... Simon to see which way I was jumpin', maybe. I shook my head, took off my hat, and ambled forward to talk to 'em proper.

"Mr Rains," Talbot said, holding out a hand in greeting, calm and dignified once again. Damn, but he smoothes over fast when he wants to. He gripped my hand firm and tight. Not for warning, though. I didn't think so anyway. Something like gratitude, instead. Relief, while he was still allowin' himself to feel some. "Won't you sit down? It seems you've done me a service, and honestly more of one than I expected. I'm grateful to you."

Which, glad-handin', yeah, but he really did make it sound genuine. He steered me over towards one of those leather chairs again, and moved back around behind his desk. He looked at Simon as he went, a tilt of an eyebrow to ask the kid to follow him, but the kid perched himself on the edge of my side of the desk instead. Talbot's eyebrows flickered upwards briefly. When they came down again, he looked contemplative. And mild-to-middling dangerous.

"Well," he said softly. "It looks like you two have a story to tell me, and an interesting one too, from the looks of things. Who'd like to start?"

Simon looked to me straight off. Ball in my court, apparently. Wanted to see what I'd choose to say. I did think about it for a second, but when it comes down to it I'm just not much for lyin', or beatin' around the bush either. Not with important shit, anyway. I figured blunt from the get-go was the best way through this.

"It's a bit of a story," I said, lookin' back towards Talbot and lettin' the kid sort himself out as he pleased. Talbot met my eyes evenly, with every indication of patience. I snorted faintly and blundered onwards towards damnation. "Quick highlights, though? Sabbat's in town." Talbot jolted upright in his chair, and I nodded tiredly. "Yeah. Your boy stumbled across 'em. Took a hit, somewhere down around Skid Row. Angie's crew scraped him up outta the gutter, then kept a hold of him for a bit tryna find out what'd happened. I talked 'em into lettin' him go tail end of last night, but it was too close to daylight to do more'n go to ground for the day. Got us both holed up, dropped off a few messages this evenin', an' then we came here."

Talbot stared at me, his hands flat and tight on the edge of his desk, and then swung his head around to stare at Simon instead. The kid shrunk a bit, dippin' his head towards his chest and tappin' a finger fitfully against his thigh, but he nodded. 

"Lasombra," he said softly. "Think so, anyway. I didn't see 'em directly. Didn't see 'em at all. First thing I knew was when shadows started movin'. Came up, tangled around my head. I couldn't see for shit. Heard somethin' movin' around me. I got my knives out, managed that, an' hit 'em a few times as well. Got 'em good at least once. Didn't help none. They beat holy hell outta me. I ... I lost it, Aaron. The thing inside me. I went crazy tryna kill 'em. Didn't do a damn thing. I was nearly dead on the ground 'fore I managed to pull myself out of it. They'd pulled back. Couldn't figure out why at first. I heard 'em laughin' while they left. Only figured it out when I heard some of Ms Myers' toughs down the end of the alley."

Talbot listened to that. So did I, for that matter. Hadn't heard that part before, though I'd guessed a lot of it. Was different, hearin' it like that. Harder. Harder for Talbot, too. He didn't move for a long second. If he'd been mortal, he'da been steadyin' his breathin', I think, but as it was it just looked like digestin'. Thinkin' it through, keepin' it cool. More or less.

"I take it you don't think it was just to avoid being seen," he said, with what I thought was admirable calm, and a whole lotta something lethal hummin' beneath it. Simon grimaced faintly, and shook his head.

"They wanted it to be Myers who finished me off," he confirmed quietly. Talbot pulled his hands carefully back into his lap, and Simon winced a bit before soldierin' on. "I don't think they went too far. They were waiting. Watching. I heard her crew coming. Tried to play dead, come up fighting. I wasn't in any shape. That bruiser of theirs, Eleanor Welles, kicked my brains out 'fore I could do more'n swing. I hit the ground again. Blacked out. I swear, Aaron, I didn't think I was gonna be wakin' up again."

Aaron Talbot stood up. Calmly. Carefully. Didn't do anything, didn't rant or rave or so much as bat an eye. I pushed myself as far back in my seat as I could go anyway. It can be hard to tell when one of us is angry. Don't have a lot of the physical responses mortals do anymore. Didn't matter. Anyone with so much as one brain cell in their head coulda felt the waves of fury rollin' off Castellan that minute. He didn't do anythin', though. He turned around and walked his eyes across the bookshelves behind 'im instead. Kept a nice strong lid on things.

And then, because I'm an idiot that way and I did kinda want him and Angie to still be on some kinda talkin' terms after this, I piped up and tried to cool things back down again.

"What Angie was tellin' me," I said, real, _real_ careful-like. "They honestly figured he was down for the count. Scared the shit outta their girl when he came up fightin', and she walloped him one or twelve outta reflex. Wasn't meanin' to kill him, though. Point of fact, when she calmed back down again she was pretty impressed. Eleanor likes people who can keep fightin' even when they're beat to shit, apparently. Angie too."

This didn't seem to cool Talbot too much, but the kid looked startled for a second there, and then sort of half between pleased and disdainful. He seemed to wobble a bit, indecisive, and then settled again. Relaxed. I'll admit, I narrowed my eyes at him for it. It looked for all the world like he'd been thinkin' of jumpin' one way, and then, on hearing that, had changed his mind and decided to go the other one. Which, given _what_ I'd just said, made me wonder a bit just how big a grudge Simon White had been holdin' against Angie.

Not that he didn't have _reason_ , mind you, but given the circumstances that mighta been damned inconvenient. Not to mention dangerous.

"... They fixed me up," he said, holding my eyes for a bit and then looking back at Talbot. Who, temper or no temper, turned his head slightly to listen to him. "I wasn't ... I wasn't well, Aaron. After losing control like that, I wasn't ... They put me up in a basement. Fed me some, asked me some questions. Tried to stop me from ... you know, from hurting myself, but they backed off when it ... when it made me worse. I did exaggerate that a little, later, just to keep 'em off my back. I wasn't sure how long I'd be there. Not that I ... I mean ..." He paused, and grimaced apologetically at his sire. "I wasn't thinking too clearly, Aaron. I didn't expect you'd send an outsider. And I was ... kinda hopin' you wouldn't be stupid enough to send one of ours?"

I winced, and turtled down in my seat a little bit. Nice, kid. Blunt as the face of a hammer. Well done. Talbot just closed his eyes for a second, though. Held himself for a beat before turning to face his childe. His rather hesitant, battered childe.

"Not until I was sure you'd been killed," Talbot said. Very softly and very gently, and with a world of quiet vengeance behind it. "I wouldn't have sent ours until I had confirmation that you were dead, and furthermore confirmation of who had killed you. It ... might have taken me some time. I would have wanted to see to it properly. Thoroughly. I would have seen it done, though. Sooner or later, I would have seen it done."

... Yeah. Like I said, boys and girls. Don't nobody mess with Aaron Talbot's things. He has a bit of an old-fashioned, salted-earth sorta policy towards that kinda thing.

"You should go get changed, Simon," he said after a moment, when the kid didn't seem inclined to do more than stare at him, a series of very complicated expressions flickering across his face. Talbot drifted over to him, touched him lightly and reassuringly on the elbow. "You've had a hard time of it these past few nights. Go get cleaned up. Get changed. I'll deal with Mr Rains, and then you and I can talk some more afterwards. All right?"

Simon stared at him for a little bit. Opened his mouth like he was gonna say something. He didn't, in the end. He dropped his eyes and nodded. "Of course, Aaron," he said. Not submissive, exactly, so much as tired and flat and a bit too emotional to be sensible. He lifted the corner of his lip in something like a smile. "I wouldn't mind smelling of something other than dirt and sewers. Ah. No offence, Mr Rains?"

"None taken, kid," I said quietly. "Been a long coupla nights. Go get sorted, huh? Me and Mr Talbot here'll get things settled between us."

An' his expression flickered at that. Reminded of his promise, maybe, or just my paranoia. Well. Call it sensible caution, hmm? I don't think there was anything in my tone, but the kid's expression did alter some. And then settle, firm with determination.

"Thanks for getting me outta there," he said, firmly enough to be pointed, and disentangled himself from his sire to come across and shake my hand. Again, little bit pointed. Behind him, Aaron Talbot raised his eyebrows again, but I was busy bumpin' mine thoughtfully upwards at Simon White. "I meant what I said. You need anything, you come and ask." A pause, while he touched the lapel of my trenchcoat thoughtfully, a faint smile on his lips. "If nothing else, I'm pretty good with a needle. Wanted to be a tailor once upon a time. You need somebody to darn up some holes, drop me a dime, yeah?"

By this stage, Talbot's eyebrows were more or less embedded in his hairline. I wasn't too far off it myself, or I woulda been if I'd still had hair. I nodded though, since it seemed to be required of me, and shook his hand proper-like before he left. And then stared at my hand for a bit after he'd made it out the door, wonderin' what in the hell that'd been about.

"... Well," Castellan said at last. An' it was, most definitely, Castellan I was talkin' to. Cool and calm and ready to do some legitimate business once again. He eyed me speculatively as he leaned against his desk. "You've certainly impressed Simon, Mr Rains. That's not a talent of his that he mentions very often. People he trusts, mostly. Just what happened between you two, if you don't mind my asking?"

Even if you _do_ mind my asking, said his expression. Very emphatically. I'd no idea what was goin' on, though, so I just shrugged a bit and told him the truth.

"Honestly, Mr Talbot? I'm not altogether sure. I talked to Angie, got her to let me see 'im, see if he'd tell me what'd happened so she'd be able to let him go." I grimaced a bit at his expression. "She did need to know. Somebody beats the hell outta one of your people on her turf? She needed to know who was tryna steer her into a war, and she didn't think you'd tell her if she just let your boy go without gettin' it out of 'im first. No offence or nothin', but I can't really blame her for that one. Not sure you would either, if you was bein' honest."

He narrowed his eyes, his jaw set hard and tight, but he conceded the point after a second. He wasn't _happy_ about it. Leavin' aside the whole issue of her holding his childe prisoner, for the disrespect and the loss of face alone he wasn't ever gonna be happy about it. But he allowed the point, at least enough to be going on with. I loosened my spine a bit and carried on.

"I think he heard me talkin' to her," I said, mulling it over still. "Maybe not all of it, over that distance, I'm not sure how well that works, but he'd have had a clear line across the yard to the window if he was listenin'. Mighta heard something. Your name, maybe? Anyway, he was geared up and ready by the time me'n Angie'd made it down. Nailed me the second I went through the door. Soul-peek. Reckon he was makin' sure I was on the up-and-up. He relaxed a bit afterwards, at least. Told Angie about the Lasombra. Played it pathetic a bit, softened her up some." I snorted softly. "He's got a helluva survival instinct, your boy, and a bit of a sneaky streak to go with it. Angie liked 'im. Pretty much in spite of herself, I reckon."

He didn't smile at that. He very carefully didn't smile. His eyes had a shine of pride to 'em though. "Yes," he said, all mild and easy-like. "He has those, all right. It was one of the things I first noticed about him. He has ... disadvantages now, but he has talents as well." And then, slightly sharper, slightly more pointed: "What about you, Mr Rains? Do you like him? In spite of yourself or otherwise?"

Soft and gentle, and deadly as poison. Oh boy. I sat up straight. As long as it's been since I died, I still get the urge now and then to take a deep breath. Like I still need it. Like I still _breathe_. It's stupid, of course, but at least a breath would buy a guy some time, ya know? But I can't anymore, so I just gotta straighten up and carry on.

"We talked some," I said, slow and careful-like, while Aaron Talbot watched me calmly and coldly from his perch against his desk. His expression didn't so much as move. I made myself look right at him, made myself hold his eyes, and kept it clear and honest. "On the way here. The sewers this evenin'. He told me some things. Tryna explain things. Tryna make sure what side I was on, so he'd know what he was bringin' home to you. He is tryna do right by you, Mr Talbot. Tells me you stuck your neck out for him, so he's tryna do right by you in turn."

You know, point of interest, if you wanna be intimidating as one of us, there's a real easy thing you can do. And that is, _nothing_. Absolutely nothing at all. 'Cause, see, we _don't_ need to breathe. We don't need to move. We don't gotta do anything at all. So you wanna scare somebody, you wanna make it real obvious how cold and lifeless and lethal you are now, sometimes all you gotta do is absolutely nothing at all. Just be as still and wrong as the wakin' corpse you are. Won't work on the older ones, of course, nothing much works on them, but us young ones? The ones who're still mostly human in our thinking? Works a damn treat. And Talbot, I gotta tell ya, Talbot's a goddamn old hand at it. Talbot's got it down pat.

"... Oh?" he asked, all polite and mildly interested-like. "And what was it he told you exactly, Mr Rains?"

No way out but through, I thought to myself. No way out but through. And besides. I had a question to ask on the back of it as well. One that might or might not turn out to be real pertinent to the issue we had to hand.

"He told me about his sire," I said, sitting forward instead of back now. Leanin' towards him, restin' my arms on my knees and keepin' my hands nice and loose and in view. "The Malkavian one, I mean. He wanted me to know what he owed you, so ... so I'd understand why he was pushin' some. So I'd understand why he was tryna blackmail me into doin' right by you." I shook my head, grinned a bit. "I'd say he needs to work on his delivery some, but facts is facts. You got those, you don't need to be all that sane to make your point stick, I guess."

Talbot moved at last. Just his face, just his expression, but that was enough. He frowned faintly in consternation for me.

"Blackmail," he repeated, rather dubiously. "I'm not sure I follow you, Mr Rains. I would have thought, under the circumstances, that Simon was the only one in danger of that down there. Particularly if he did tell you what you say he did."

Right. Cards on the table. I do prefer havin' things up front if at all possible. I really _hate_ politics. The least a body can do is be honest about 'em. 

"There's a Lasombra in town," I said, soft and blunt. "You know as well as I do what that means. Angie's on the front line. Chances are I'm gonna be helpin' her with it down the line. Since that Lasombra was pretty obviously swingin' for you as well, your boy wanted to make sure that Angie wasn't the only one I was gonna be helpin'. Seein' as, us bein' on the same team an' all, you're _supposed_ to have the better claim."

Talbot's expression was a picture at that. His hand half-moved, like he wanted to reach up and cradle his head. Amusement flickered across his face, and pride, and rueful, pained despair. "Subtlety," he murmured desperately. "For god's sake, Simon. _Subtlety_."

That pulled a chuckle outta me. For all we were discussin' what we discussin', for all it did still have a decent chance of gettin' me killed, I did havta laugh a bit. "Give the kid credit," I noted wryly. "He wasn't well. He'd had a rough few nights, and we were sittin' in a sewer at the time. He wasn't in the best of shape for subtle. I wouldn't have thought he was in the best shape for blackmail, either, but he managed it, and uphill all the way. Go easy on the kid. He did all right."

Talbot arched an eyebrow there. "That's very tolerant of you, Mr Rains," he noted curiously. "Are you that unconcerned, or _do_ you really just like my boy that much?"

I chewed my lip again, thought about it, but honestly I already knew my answer. So did Talbot, maybe. He might not be able to peek at souls the way his childe could, but he was an old and careful hand at this game we were playing. I doubt he'd have put me on the case in the first place if he didn't have some idea which way I was likely to jump at the end of it.

"I do like him," I said bluntly. "For a lot of the same reasons as Angie, I'd say. He's tough, he's loyal, and he's willing to fight even when he's already on the ground. I'm not gonna piss on him just to get a chance to mess with you, even if I particularly wanted to mess with you in the first place. But that ain't ... that ain't the only reason why. Reckon you know that as well as I do. I'm not much for games or politics on the best of nights, Mr Talbot. And we got a lot bigger problems at the minute."

He sobered up. All the way. He nodded quietly and stood up, moved back around behind his desk. Sat down and propped his hands in front of his face to think about it some.

"Sabbat," he agreed, after a long minute. "At the very least, one confirmed Lasombra, and given their proclivities they're unlikely to be a lone operator. Coming here, trying to use myself and Ms Myers. Trying to spark a conflict and use it to weaken the city's flank. You're right, Mr Rains. A problem indeed."

"Yeah," I said, real quiet-like. 'Cause I had more problems. 'Cause I had more questions. "An', you'll pardon me for sayin' this, but they're goin' about it a bit odd. It don't take much to rile Angie. It wouldn'ta taken much at all to point her at you. But they took one of _your_ boys instead. They tried to rile _you_ , point you at her insteada the other way around. That looks to me like you're the main target, Mr Talbot. Looks nearly personal-like. Like they want you, in particular, to lose your cool and open up the place for 'em."

His jaw clenched again. There's a lot of force a vampire can turn on himself, if he's minded. 'Swhat makes poor Simon's condition as worrisome as it is. But Talbot has a lotta control. He ain't easy to budge once he knows you're tryin'.

"Keepers are generally ill-disposed towards my kind," was all he went with, after a minute or two. "If it's more personal than that, Mr Rains, I'm not aware of any reason. To my knowledge I've never personally tangled with a Lasombra. It may simply be that ... at present, I am the weakest Ventrue in the city. At least, the weakest one still influential enough to be useful to them." And oh, but it pained him to say that, but say it he did. Bore through it and carried the point. "Had Ms Myers and her group attacked us, the Camarilla would simply have shown our force and crushed them. Inciting _me_ to ... incautious action, shall we say, would create lines of weakness _within_ the Camarilla. That would, I think, better suit their purpose."

I nodded. Fair point, after all. And, since we were on the subject, and it never hurts to say this kinda thing: "I'd say that backfired on 'em, then. You lost your cool a bit, but you didn't swing before you had your facts. Combined with the fact that Angie didn't either, and not only did they not get their turf war, they showed at least part of their hand as well. They made a bad bet, sir."

It wasn't empty flattery, either. It wasn't brown-nosin'. They _had_ made a bad bet. Talbot hadn't kept his cool all the way, hadn't let the thing slide, and if his boy _had_ been dead then they'da got their war and then some. But Talbot had kept his head and gone at the thing sideways-like, sending me insteada jumpin' in himself, and Simon'd managed to impress Angie enough for her to let 'im live, and Angie'd had enough honour and decency not to finish off a wounded kid just for belongin' to the wrong man on her turf. Calm and decency and a scrappy little kid who was more resourceful than he looked. It wasn't anything you'd risk layin' your bets on, but it sure could spoke somebody else's wheel given half a chance.

The 'sir' _was_ brown-nosin' a bit, mind you, but I did want Talbot on side. I did want him and me and Angie able to at least compare notes down the line, if not necessarily outright cooperate. Him and Angie in a room together ... yeah, like that was happenin' this side of Gehenna. Still. I'm a pretty good go-between. Got a whole rep based on it. Just lay a little groundwork, ease a coupla stiff joints ...

An' he knew what I was doin', I'm nearly sure of that, but either he appreciated the effort or he just appreciated the necessity enough to roll with it. He inclined his head all grateful-like. "You have a point, Mr Rains," he said. And then, a little quellingly: "And yes, I am aware of Ms Myers' forbearance as well. I will remember it. I promise."

I winced, and nodded hastily. That ... hadn't been my only point, though. And risky as it was, I did think it worth it to circle back around to the other one.

"I do think it was pointed at you, though," I said again. Slow enough and thoughtful enough that he didn't immediately shut me down for repeating the point. "I'd say you're right that it's 'cause of what you are and where you're positioned. It's not personal that way. But it _was_ personal how they went about it. What I mean is, they picked your kid. They needed you to swing, and they got your _childe_ to make sure of it. But they shouldn'ta been able to do that. They shouldn'ta _known_ he was your childe. _I_ didn't know he was your childe, and I'm pretty sure neither Angie nor anybody else I've talked to knows it either. I mean, I'm gonna check around a bit, but I don't think that's somethin' you pick up on a street corner or nothin'. You've been keepin' it on the down-low. But they knew about it. They knew who to pick to try'n get a reaction outta ya. You, ah. You follow where I'm goin' with this?"

He was doin' that terrifying stillness trick again when I looked at him. His eyes were about burning in his head, and his expression was terrifying to look at. So, yeah. Yeah, I reckon he did know where I was goin' with it an' all.

"A mole," he said tightly. "You believe I have a mole in my organisation. One willing to sell out to the _Sabbat_."

I grimaced, but I nodded again. "You, or maybe the Prince," I said, and deeply, _deeply_ wished I hadn't had to, because that is _definitely_ the kinda thing a body can get killed for saying. I said it anyway, because it was true. "Simon says you adopted him all official-like. Could be someone in the Prince's office too. Or ... Or there's maybe another option. In addition, maybe. To know you _did_ stand for the kid after the fact, they'd need someone current. But ... it's just somethin' Simon said to me earlier. Down in the sewers. He was tellin' me how his sire took him, how she made him. How he didn't know if it was an accident or a plan, but she'd made him into a weakness for you. And then, talkin' about the Lasombra, he was sayin' he had to warn you. That something was comin', _as bad as the first time_. And, well. I guess that got me wonderin' a little bit ...?"

Talbot blinked at that. Startled out of his fury, reared back a bit in his chair. His brows drew down as he thought about it. He didn't dismiss it. He caught what I was sayin', I could see he did, and he didn't dismiss it. I felt my heart sink a bit. I'd hoped ... I don't know. I'd hoped I was wrong, I guess, hoped he'd tell me she was accounted for or even dead, that it wasn't what I was suspectin'. The kid had enough damned problems. He didn't need that on top of it.

But no. No. 'Cause, _again_ , some people have worst goddamned luck in all the world.

"We couldn't find her," Talbot said softly. Thoughtful and angry and pained. "We couldn't even identify her. I informed the Prince. The Sheriff too. A Malkavian going around Embracing people on a whim, it's not something they look kindly on. We didn't find her, though. None of us. We thought she'd left the city, that she'd been a transient to start with. This was ... fifteen, sixteen months ago. That's ... To go to that amount of _effort_ , just to--"

"To give you a weakness," I finished quietly. I'd been thinkin' on this some, ever since that conversation with the kid down in the sewers. "I was wonderin'. I'm pretty sure Simon's been wonderin' too. You're on the weak flank, Mr Talbot. You got Angie next door, and then just the factories out beyond that. You're a temptin' target. And then you got a kid, and you're attached enough to him to let it affect your decisions some. Simon knows he's dangerous for ya. I think he's been suspectin' something like this for a while. You went all the way up the ladder for 'im. You went to the _Prince_. I think he's been worried more or less since the start that someone was gonna find out enough to use him against ya. An' maybe she said something. They were both outta their heads, I gather he don't got a whole lotta memories from his time with her, but maybe she said something, an' a bit of him _did_ remember. 'Cause he said to me it mighta been planned. He's had that thought in his head. He thinks you shoulda killed him the first time he walked in here without a heartbeat."

Talbot curled his hand gently into a fist. He stood up again, turned to walk his eyes across his bookshelves once more. 'Cause the kid _did_ matter to him. _Does_ matter to him. 'Cause he'd had his eye on Simon White long before that Malkavian had, and _maybe that was why_. Maybe that'd been why she took him. Maybe that was how the Lasombra'd known to take him again.

'Cause Talbot had the weak flank, and somebody inside or outside his organisation had been watching him, and somebody had wanted to give him a nice and pokeable weak spot. Just so he'd swing when he was pushed. Just so he'd go to war when they needed him to.

Didn't I tell ya? Didn't I say? There's no worse goddamn liability in this world than love. And there ain't a single one of us who don't know it.

"... And what is it you think, Mr Rains?" the man asked at last, and I don't think I've ever heard a voice pressed flatter in all my life. Or unlife either. "What do you think I should do?"

"Not kill the kid," I said immediately. Possibly offensively, but let's get that one outta the way fast. "He don't deserve that, no matter he thinks, and if it was a plan you're onto it now anyway. They already took him, and it already backfired. You got a bit of breathin' room now. You an' Angie, you both know who the enemy is, and you both know they were tryna play you for fools. That gives you a bit of time. I do think you got a mole. I think you got somebody close to ya who's tellin' people who you care about. You wanna look into that. An' I know ... I know comin' from me this might be fairly suspect, but I think it's worth your time to talk to Angie. She don't like Sabbat any more'n you do, and she don't like bein' messed around any more'n you do. There's been truces built on worse grounds than that, and you're both out here on the edge. If you firm up the flank that'll give 'em less options for gettin' at either of ya."

Talbot laughed softly. He turned to me, his lip lifted in a mirthless smile. "It is a little suspect," he agreed lightly. "It's also a little suspect that you're encouraging me to keep a weakness you're one of the few people to know about. Just if we're talking suspicions here."

... Oh boy. Aw hell. But if you're already up to your eyeballs, there's not much point tryna swim _then_. You might as well just duck your head and see what's down at the bottom.

If you're a Nosferatu, anyway. Or just too honest for your own good, I guess, and maybe not altogether that bright.

"If it comes down to that," I said, soft and not at all cautious anymore. "If it comes to that, Mr Talbot, I'm as easy to kill as the kid is. But I ain't got no reason to hurt Simon, and honestly I ain't got much reason to hurt you either. 'Specially when it turns out you're one of our main flanks against the Sabbat. I'm not sayin' I'm loyal to you, we both know I'm not. But I need you. Right now this whole end of the city needs you. It ain't gonna pay me nothin' to try'n hurt you right now. With the Sabbat in town, it's much more likely to cost, and likely one whole hell of a lot more than I wanna end up paying." 

Which was true. An' what also true, even if it wasn't the kinda thing a man like Talbot especially might be inclined to bet his unlife on:

"Besides," I said, quiet-like. "Is he really that much of a weakness? Maybe he was planned to be, but did it really turn out that way? The kid loves you. He'll back you into hell if you ask 'im. You wanna cut his head off in the morning I think he'd kneel down and let ya. And you're not that weak yourself either. You ain't Brujah, you ain't gonna swing at the drop of a hat. Already tested that one. Push comes to shove, you both know you ain't gonna jeapordise nothin' for each other. All he's proved so far is that you've got an eye for talent, and that it really ain't wise to mess with what belongs to ya. Don't know that I'd be ashamed of those. Either one."

He stared at me for a long, long second. And then, with the oddest tone of voice I've ever heard on anyone, he said: 

"You know, you ought to go into politics, Mr Rains. You have a gift for oratory that might well overcome your, ah. Your initial disadvantages."

He gestured slightly down the length of me as he said it, makin' it plainly obvious what said disadvantages might be. I stared straight back at him, my eyebrows crawling up my head. 

"... You know, I did go and get your boy for ya," I said. "I know these ain't the best circumstances or nothin', but I'm not sure there's call to go insultin' me like that, Mr Talbot."

He didn't grimace. He smiled faintly instead. "My apologies, Mr Rains. I didn't mean to draw attention to the misfortunes of your Embrace."

I snorted. "Didn't mean that part," I said, entirely honestly. His smile widened, broad and lethal as the blade of a knife.

"You'll find politics are a necessary evil in this world," was all he said. Mildly enough, all things considered. "One I'm not sure you can escape, if you're going to be brokering truces and alliances for people in the face of the Sabbat. For a man who so loudly professes your distaste for the corridors of power, Mr Rains, you certainly don't shy away from navigating them when you're pressed."

I blinked a bit, a little wrong-footed. "Don't know that that's true," I said, squinting up at him uneasily. "Don't know that it's politics when I'm just bein' honest and sayin' what needs sayin' to keep people alive."

Aaron Talbot chuckled at that one, cold and tired while he levered himself back down into his seat. "I think you'll find there are few things more inherently political than the truth," he noted softly. "Nonetheless. Believe what you will. I think we've taken up enough of each other's time, Mr Rains. I have a childe to speak to and an incursion to plan for. And you, I'm sure, have reports to make. Ones I cannot _prevent_ you from making, not unless I wish to go to war with the Nosferatu on top of the Sabbat. Do give my regards to your sire, won't you? Tell him ... Tell him I begin to see that I'm not the only one with an eye for talent." He looked back up at me, calm and easy and lethal once again. "Thank you for your assistance in this matter, Mr Rains. I'm sure we'll be in touch."

An' I went. Because I was tired and wrong-footed and off-guard. Because he couldn't have given a more clear dismissal had he up and booted me out himself. Because, I'll be honest, I was more'n happy to get out an' leave 'im to it.

It was only when I was all the way out the door and halfway down the nearest manhole that I realised the bastard hadn't paid me. Not one goddamn dime, and me after saving his kid, giving him a heads-up on one whopper of an enemy, brokering at least the option of a truce between him and Angie, and offerin' up some pretty darned good advice on top of it all. _Damn_ the man anyway. 

On the other hand, though, he hadn't killed me, despite some fairly potent provocation, and he had ... huh. 

He had given tacit permission, there at the end, for me to tell my people whatever I felt needed telling. Which I woulda done _anyway_ , mind you, but for somebody like Talbot to even tacitly acknowledge that, sign over his secrets without so much as a warning or a fuss ... Huh. Well I'll be damned. More than I already am, I mean. Plus, his kid owed me a favour as well, which he hadn't vetoed any, and he'd more or less promised to contact me again, presumably in relation to the Sabbat and/or Angie. 

... I needed to talk to my sire, didn't I? I needed to talk to my sire real, _real_ bad, 'cause I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd just landed myself well over my head in the biggest stinking pile of shit I'd ever laid eyes on.

It hadn't killed me yet, though. Honesty or no honesty, big mouth or no big mouth, I'd managed to tap dance my way out and through. Into _politics_ , apparently, but you gotta take your blessings when they come to ya, even if they do come with shit attached. Aw hell with it. I'm a Nosferatu. Sewer rats, right? Our line of work, I'm pretty sure a steamin' pile of shit comes along with _everything_.

And by god, did I hope my sire agreed, 'cause right then I was due a helluva chewin' out from a standing start. Sometimes I really do feel sorry for the guy, you know? Sometimes I really do wonder if he knew what he was gettin'. 

I know I sure as hell didn't.


	4. Plans, Clans and Cowardice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael heads down to the warrens to have a chat with his brood. Rather more of them than he was expecting. What a lovely little family of monsters they are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I read the Brian Campbell version of Clanbook: Nosferatu, which only made me love them more, but I suspect I may be straying badly in this one. Apologies in advance. It did come out a bit more friendly 'Meet the Munsters' than I was planning -_-;

Okay, so, thing you mighta figured out about me, I ain't exactly what you'd call a tough guy. Some people are in my profession. They can take it or dish it out with the best of 'em. Me, not so much. I mean, sure, I wear iron. I'm an okay shot and I can bean a guy on the head, no problem. Generally speaking, though, I'm more of a duck-and-sidle sorta snooper. I ain't a fighter. The likes of Angie or Rich, or even our pal Simon White and his pair of shivs, could go to town on me any night of the week without too much in the way of trouble. Those are facts. If I can't talk my way outta something or else make a run for it, then kid, I am up shit creek and in deep, deep trouble.

It has been pointed out to me a time or two that this ain't necessarily the best of life choices for a man in my position. Or unlife choices, as the case may be. An' that's a fair point, I do know that. There's things out here can do one helluva lotta damaged to a body, vampire or no vampire, and most of 'em in the mood for it as well. A man needs to know howta defend himself. 

It's just, the fact of the matter is, I'm a _gumshoe_. I ain't a hatchetman. Comes down to it, I'm always gonna run first and fight later. That's just the way it is.

There are times, though, I will admit, when I really, _really_ start rethinkin' that stance a little bit. 'Specially since my Embrace. There's things I meet out here, things I even _hear_ about out here, and they make me think real long and hard about maybe learnin' howta cut somebody up so they stay the hell down. Ain't come to it yet, ain't somethin' I've got any natural talent for, but I gotta say I do think about it sometimes.

An' one of those times, so very much one of those times, was when I was climbin' down that manhole from Talbot's joint, and I turned around at the bottom of the ladder, and a lipless, noseless horror of a face manifested itself _right in fucking front of me_.

"Boo!" it said, and I ain't too proud to admit that I was already three rungs back up the goddamned ladder, my yelp of terror still echoin' around me, before my senses caught back up with me again and I calmed down enough to realise who the fuck it was. I'm tellin' ya, it was a damned good job I was already goddamned dead, because if I hadn't been I'da had myself a goddamned heart attack for fuckin' sure. Holy mother of _fuck_.

"Jesus _Christ_ , Anselma!" I yelped, clinging to the metal rung with both arms and trying desperately to remind myself that vampires can't die of shock. Holy Hannah. If I'da had that quick-step ability that Angie and her boys did, I'da been back out the top of the sewer before anybody'd known I'd been down it. "Don't fucking do that! Not tonight, Jesus, not tonight! I thought you were a goddamned Lasombra or something!"

Or a Malkavian, seein' as they can do our sneaky thing as well if they're minded to. Holy Hannah and Christ on a crutch! An', I mean, I didn't _actually_ think that, it's a bit hard to mistake Anselma for ... well, pretty much anybody, honestly, but it'd been that kind of night. I was jumpy as hell, I'm gonna admit that straight up. Sense wasn't really comin' into it, yeah?

Not that Anselma DeLeon ain't perfectly terrifying on her own. She oughta be, the amount of effort she puts into it, but she genuinely is freaky as hell. The Embrace took her bad. I mean, as bad as I am, the Embrace took Anselma worse. Her face looks like a fanged skull, bone and ropes of muscle and then hard, white flesh over the top of it. I dunno, I think she decided somewhere along the line that if she was gonna look that bad from a standing start, she might as well go all the way about it. She don't move human no more. She prowls and crouches and swaggers. She leers at ya outta the shadows. She goes invisible and gets the drop on ya and swings out to scare the everlovin' _hell_ outta ya. Case in point. Trust me on this, Anselma is plenty scary all by her lonesome. She really is.

She just ain't normally tryna kill me, is all. I'm about, say, seventy to eighty percent sure of that. We have what you might call a _complicated relationship_ , generally speaking, but I'm reasonably certain of that one. She ain't tryna kill me. Which puts her quite a lotta rungs ahead of our potentially-lurking Sabbat pals.

"Yes, _about that_ ," she growled, backing off a bit to let me climb my shaking way back down the ladder. I glanced at her warily. Her face don't move so well no more, but she can pack one helluva lot into a tone. This one was frigid, bordering on dangerous. I twitched back a bit, and gave serious thought to legging it back up the ladder. She caught the thought, musta done, and grabbed me before I could, leanin' in low and savage to my face. "What the _hell_ did you think you were doing?" she hissed. "You couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag, and then we get messages saying you're picking fights with the _Sabbat_? Are you actively _trying_ to get yourself killed?"

I blinked at her a bit. I'll be honest, I was little too tired and scrambled to be parsin' that properly, especially from her, but ... it sounded for all the world like concern? Which woulda been odd, comin' from Anselma. Like I said, complicated relationship. She don't really _do_ worry, least not about me. Most of the time, I get the impression she still looks at me like this weird, mostly useless pet my sire dragged home one day. Which, fair enough. Anselma's got a real different skillset from mine. From her point of view, I pretty much _am_ useless. I don't hold that against her none. I just wish she didn't spend so much of her time tryna scare the bejeezus outta me, that's all. 

And then there she was, pullin' me down the ladder from Aaron Talbot's place, soundin' all worried. Maybe it was just the night that was in it, me bein' paranoid and jumpy all over the place, but it did kinda freak me out a little bit.

"Uh, Anselma?" I asked, very, very careful-like. "You okay over there?" And then, a lot more sharply as the thought occurred to me: "Nothin' happened, did it? Nothin' came down an' tried to mess with us? I didn't think me and the kid was bein' followed, but ..."

But if we had been, and they'd tried to follow my _messages_ insteada me ... Oh boy. Yeah, that could be bad. Most of those pipes and passages are way too narrow for a human-sized body, an' I don't think Malkavians or Lasombra can send rats down instead the way me or my sire coulda, but that don't mean they mightn't have gotten enough of a direction to start explorin' down where we didn't want 'em to start explorin'.

Which, mind you, wouldn't necessarily end all that well for 'em. Marta's got traps galore down closer to the warrens, and Lasombra or no damn Lasombra I ain't sure how much I'd bet on Sabbat versus Marta on her own damn turf. It wasn't really the warrens I was worried about, though. It was _Anselma_. 

'Cause Anselma's our lookout, see? That's what she does. The bits Marta ain't trapped, Anselma walks a beat on. An' she ain't nothin' to mess with all casual-like, I promise ya. Different skillsets, yeah? If I'm the duck-and-sidle snooper, Anselma is _the_ original rough customer. She takes it serious-like. Packs a wallop as'd give Rich a run for his money, and a bit of steel as'd put Simon's dinky little stabbers to shame. The first time I met her, I tell ya, I nearly managed to shit my pants and vampire biology be damned. A mud-spattered skull-demon poppin' outta nowhere swinging a cleaver at ya will _do_ that. My sire about broke somethin' laughin' at me. An' then fished me outta the sewage I'd dived into like a gent.

An' you might be askin' here, if she's so goddamned scary an' all, why the hell am I worryin' about _her_ insteada whatever poor bastard Sabbat mighta run into her? There's probably a coupla reasons, but mostly it boils down to two things. One is that Simon's descriptions of, well, either one of 'em, Lasombra or Malkavian, about scared the crap outta me.

An' the other is, complicated relationship or no complicated relationship, Anselma's one of _mine_.

Not that she's particularly impressed by that, mind you. She actually stopped draggin' me down the tunnel long enough to look at me funny. I wasn't completely sure why, but thankfully with Anselma you don't usually got wait long to find stuff like that out. 

"You," she decided blankly, "are an _idiot_." Ah. Fair enough then. "No, nothing came down. The problem isn't the Sabbat poking us, pendejo. The _problem_ is you poking the _Sabbat_. Not to mention the Ventrue. Now come on. We've got to get back down to the warrens. Marta wants a word with you."

 _I_ stopped dead at that one. Which, unwise, especially when Anselma has you by the arm and looks in the mood to fling you down and drag you by it. Still. I needed a second. I had to stop still and grapple with that for a minute.

I'd thought we were headed down to see Phil. My sire, Philip Lamarr. That's what I'd been plannin' on, anyway, and a surprise escort by Anselma hadn't particularly disabused me of the notion. She can take notions like that, it's not that strange. I was figuring I was gonna get yelled at some, and maybe my sire'd asked 'Selma to make sure I didn't go tryin' to avoid it or nothin'. If _Marta'd_ sent her, though ...

If Marta'd sent her, I was in deep, _deep_ trouble. No ifs, ands or buts. Marta don't tend to stick her nose in too much unless it's big enough to involve the entire brood, or else you've personally gone and pissed her right the hell off. _Neither_ of those options is a pleasant one. Marta is probably scarier than all the resta the brood combined. Which makes sense, really, since she's the matriarch around here. The grandsire. I know my sire and Anselma are both her childer. Not sure about Lisbeth. Possibly not, I think, but that don't matter too much in the end. Even Lisbeth listens to Marta. Ain't nobody who _doesn't_.

At least, ain't nobody who _knows_ about her who doesn't. I ain't sure how many above ground do. Marta don't surface much, if at all. I ain't never heard her do it, anyway. Her an' Anselma, they tend to stay below, barring the odd hunt in Anselma's case. Lisbeth is the face of the Nosferatu in the city. She's the Primogen, the one who goes up top and deals with the Prince and that lot. I don't tend to see too much of her. My sire'd surface more as well, when he's pushed. Far as I can tell, he's sorta the odd-jobs man around here, with a bit of a scrounger an' a second-story man mixed in. You need somethin' got for ya, you ask my sire. Or, well. Or me now, I guess, but I'm more street-level than second-story. An' probably a bit too honest for it most of the time.

Anyway. Point was, Marta ain't somebody you wanna find yourself seein' all sudden-like. Even leavin' aside how terrifyin' she is from the get-go, chances are it means you done gone and messed up. _Royally_.

I was in trouble, is my point here. I was in one whole helluva lot of trouble.

"You finished panicking yet?" Anselma asked me. Impatiently, but she's like that. Don't balk at much of anythin', Anselma. I'd give her odds to walk into a volcano without a flinch. Me, I tend to have a bit more in the way of sensible caution when it comes to these things. Volcanoes. Marta. Either one, really. But I nodded anyway, because there weren't no getting out of it.

"Yeah," I croaked faintly. "Yeah, sure. Got my will up to date an' everything. Lay on, MacDuff."

Anselma shook her head at me, and continued dragging me on towards home. Well. Not _dragging_ , exactly. She let up after a tunnel or two, let me walk my own path to damnation. That wasn't really courtesy, though. That was her on high alert, swoopin' and climbin' up to ceiling height and vanishing to keep an eye on things. Just in case any ol' Sabbat friends of ours _were_ knockin' around the place. Me for bait, walkin' down the middle, and 'Selma up high, ready to jump 'em if they showed. You gotta love my unlife. You really do.

Weren't no trouble on the way home, though. Which was fortunate, 'cause I really doubt my nerves woulda held for it. Between Talbot, Sabbat and now Marta, I reckon I'da had myself a nice sit-down in the sewage an' waited for 'em to finish. Didn't come to that, though. So that was all right then. Just the brood, that was all. Just me'n Marta, sittin' down for tea.

'Cept it wasn't just Marta. When we slithered inta the Chamber of Horrors, Anselma an' me, it wasn't just Marta sittin' around waitin' for us. It was damn near everybody. My sire waved at me from his battered settee. Lisbeth was leanin' on the back of Marta's armchair. _Lisbeth_ , who don't normally come within a mile of me 'cept in passin'. 

An' then, sitting neat an' pleasant in her armchair, Marta herself.

She looks like a little ol' lady. I don't mean like an old Nosferatu, I mean like a little old _human_ lady. Neat, gray-haired old granny, all withered and sweet, sittin' there in her pearls and her printed calico. It is the _creepiest goddamned thing_. I ain't just sayin' that. It's a skin she puts on, a disguise. Ain't always exactly the same. Sometimes it's a _different_ little old lady. But it ain't for nothin'. She don't go up top, like I said. It ain't a disguise in aid of anything. Near as I can tell, it's purely for her own amusement. At some point or other, I reckon she just thought, 'what's the freakiest thing a body could walk into a room full of monsters and find sittin' in the middle of 'em'? An' then she went with that, because _why not_?

She gives me the frights, she really does. Ain't even 'cause she's _done_ nothin'. She ain't ever been nothin' but friendly to me. She looks out for me, same as the rest of us look out for each other. She's just ... Every time I go near her, I keep comin' away with the impression that one of these days she's gonna pat me on the head, give me a cookie, and then slit my throat. I don't got a reason for it. She just comes off that way.

Not that the rest of the room are necessarily much better. Not that _I'm_ necessarily much better these days. Monsters all, we are. I know that. She's just ... she's got a dodgy sense of humour, is what she's got. It's a bit worrying, that's all.

Anyway. We arrived down, me'n Anselma, and found the lot of 'em sittin' there starin' at us. Well. At me. Anselma grinned at me some, though with her face she's sorta always grinnin', and punched me smartly on the shoulder before makin' her way over to claim the armchair next to Marta. Abandoned me, nice and neat. I dithered for a second or two, panicking a bit all over again, but then my sire took pity on me. He shuffled up on the settee and beckoned me over.

"Come on an' sit down, ya dumb onion," he grinned at me, wavin' his long-fingered hands. "Don't look so petrified. We ain't gonna kill ya. Yet."

I grimaced at 'im. "Thanks for that," I said. "Real reassurin'." But I went over an' sat, because his word is usually good that way. Only ever killed me the once, my sire. Pretty sure I can trust the guy to know will he or won't he after that.

"You don't need to worry," Marta piped up, in this soft, thin voice that made me think of pressed flowers. I hate it when she does that. "We're just looking for a bit of a report, Michael, that's all. According to your messages, you seem to have found yourself on rather tricky ground, and potentially city-sized at that. We just want to check our information, and keep on top of any further developments."

"Like _Sabbat_ ," Lisbeth interrupted, looking stern and exasperated at me. She wears a face a lotta the time too, though she prefers more stern and middle-aged. She was just plain Lisbeth then though. She's probably the closest to me in looks. Greenish, like me. Lisbeth's a bit more reptilian around the edges than I am, though. Usually a whole lot sterner too. "I've informed the Prince of what you've told us so far. Early warnings and all that. We had an agent investigating it, I said. Thank you for delaying Talbot, by the way. It's so nice to be able to keep our reputation for being forever first with pertinent information."

"Er," I said. Absolutely I'd meant to do that. Yes ma'am. "Uh. Sure thing?"

My sire snorted loudly. Right next to my ear, which was lovely. "Like you did that on purpose," he said. Which, only fair. "Come on kid. Sit down and tell us a story, huh? We wanna see just how much shit everybody's in for, and who we gotta put manners on. If anybody."

Way he said it, though, he was bettin' on putting manners on _somebody_. An' I'll be honest, I wasn't all that sure he wasn't gonna end up havin' to. I just _hoped_ he wasn't, because turf wars are the kinda thing I'd like my people to stay _out_ of, thanks.

There weren't no help for it, though. So I sat down, and I told 'em a story.

I kept it neat. Bit less flavour than I'm givin' here, yeah? But I made sure I got all the pertinent facts out. An' I made sure to tell 'em who'd done what, and what I thought of 'em for it. Talbot, particularly, but Angie too. I didn't pretty it up none the way I'd done for either of the others. Just the facts, an' just what I thought. If Marta and Lisbeth were both listenin' in on this, then likely this was goin' all the way to the top. I mean, Talbot probably woulda batted it up that way anyway, which in hindsight was why Lisbeth was grateful for the delay, but this was _my_ top. My people, not some foggy Prince I'd only met the once and hadn't much liked besides. I didn't want none of mine makin' decisions on bad information. Not that I'd brought to 'em, anyway. If somebody was playin' with us, I wasn't gonna be part of it.

There was a long bit of silence once I'd finished. They'd asked me questions along the way, queryin' this, that or the other, but once I was done there was just the long quiet of various people digestin' things. My sire made clicking noises out the side of his mouth while he thought about it, his long fingers wrapped around his crossed knees. Don't know that I'd have noted it as much if I hadn't spent a lot of the night with Simon White first. Clicking, tapping. It ain't compulsive with my sire, though. He just makes annoying noises a lot.

"... So," he said, after mulling it over a bit. "So Aaron Talbot has an adoptive childe, does he? And one likely sired from the Sabbat. _That's_ a juicy morsel, right enough."

"Aw, come on," I said quietly. "Don't go shittin' on the kid none. Poor bastard's got enough problems from a standing start."

"Doesn't everybody," Anselma grunted across the way, but she was tappin' a fingernail thoughtfully against her exposed teeth. "Guess you're right, though. Kid sounds okay. Bit up his sire's ass, but at least he's honest about it and takes his debts seriously. Even if they are to a _Ventrue_."

"I'm not sure we want to go messing with Talbot," Lisbeth murmured, leaning on her crossed arms, so low her nose was nearly brushing Marta's false hair. "Not yet, at least, and not on such scant information. That could get tricky, though. If Carrington sends the Sheriff down there, things could get very messy very quickly. Not least because of those Anarchs. A threeway fight between Anarchs, Camarilla and Sabbat? With Talbot politicking in the middle of it? We might as well kiss that entire end of the city goodbye."

"Mmm," Marta said, leaning back in her chair. "Might do. Not that we necessarily need to fuss too much about that. Surface problems, my dears. Unless there's overspill down towards here, we shouldn't have to bother about it much."

She said it to provoke. I know she did. Both Lisbeth and I still made instant and simultaneous disagreeing noises. Which was, let me tell you, more than a bit disconcerting. Marta smirked faintly at the pair of us. Lisbeth stared at me. And my sire outright cackled.

"Talbot have a point then, did he?" he asked me, leering horrifyingly as he elbowed me in the side. "Acquired a taste for surface politics, have you?" I don't want to guess _what_ musta showed in my face at that one, but he grimaced cheerfully. "Don't know what happened there, then. Oughta been Lisbeth's, not mine. Maybe she oughta be worried about competition."

Lisbeth snorted loudly. "Lisbeth," she said quellingly, "would be more than happy to hand this fucking job over to any one of you. _If_ you could be trusted to do it right. You think I want to be stuck dealing with any of that highfalutin lot all the time? But let's not be too silly. That isn't even a question. Certainly not with _him_. He is your childe, Phil. His problem's a whole lot worse again."

"He's _soft_ ," Anselma agreed, with that sort of pitying contempt she tends to point my way a lot. "He's gone and gotten attached, hasn't he? Wants to look out for them. Wants to go and get himself killed trying to mind people who are big and ugly enough to mind themselves."

I squirmed in my seat. 'Cause that's not ... that ain't _entirely_ fair. _Mostly_ , maybe, but not entirely. It ain't that I'm attached. It ain't that I'm a bleedin' heart or nothin', it ain't that I go stickin' my neck out at the drop of a hat. I do have _some_ common sense. 

It's just that I do like Angie, though. I liked the kid too, even then, even with just a coupla nights knowin' 'im. And Lisbeth was right. Throw the Sheriff and the Sabbat in on top of 'em, and those two were gonna be comin' off the worst of it. I mean, Angie would go to war, no problem, but if she had to fight on two fronts, or get used by one side an' then mopped up by the other afterwards, chances were she was gonna be takin' the bulk of the hits. An' the kid ... Anybody up top confirmed for sure where he'd come from, and Talbot was gonna havta do some real fast tapdancin' to try'n keep him alive. If Talbot felt like trying. If Talbot was _able_. If Simon's sire really _was_ a Sabbat Malkavian, then he was in deep, deep shit without a lotta hope for a way out. An' I know, I _know_ things like that just happen, that this is just the way things are out here, but I did ...

I did like 'em. I did, I suppose, get a little bit attached.

" _Madre de Dios_ ," Anselma spat, in open disgust. Lookin' at my face, probably reading the entirety of the truth of it there. "For god's sake, Phil! Look at him. You think he's going to last more than ten minutes up there? If the Sabbat don't eat him, the Camarilla will. He can't even _fight_ , and he wants to go to war?"

Which, look. It is a point. I know that. It's been pointed out to me, a whole lotta times. Hell, even Simon White had said it. 'Anyone ever tell you you're too soft for this, Mr Rains?' Yeah, kid. Coupla people have, and a coupla people are probably right, too. I'm guessin' my unlife expectancy in this game is fair-to-middling shit. I think, when my sire started describin' realities to me, way back when, I'd already guessed that. I think maybe he did too. 

Thing is, though. Thing is. The world can do what it likes. The world is big and ugly enough to destroy its own damned self. It don't need me for that. So I'm lookin' out for me and mine, and whoever crosses my path as I feel needs it, and I'm doin' it my way, and the world can do what it likes. Just 'cause everything's shit out here don't mean I gotta play along.

Even if I die for it. But hell. That happened once already, didn't it? Ain't nothin' extra to worry about second time around, I reckon.

"... He'll do all right," my sire said beside me. Soft. Real soft. I blinked and looked over at 'im, and found this odd little crooked smile on his hideous face. He reached out and patted my knee, his fingers nimble and extra-jointed. "He's just built for compassion, that's all. Ain't necessarily a problem, so long's it's pointed at the right people. He'll learn that. I didn't pick 'im 'cause I figured ten minutes in he'd drop his values at the door. Kinda the opposite, really."

"Don't worry about it, dear," Marta interrupted softly, eyeing my sire warmly and reaching over to pat Anselma gently on the arm. "Phil's a little soft as well, after all, and he's lasted all right. And I _didn't_ pick him for that. I picked him for being a light-fingered so-and-so with an eye for useful things. Which, you will admit, he does have. You just have to take the idiocy with the ability, I'm afraid."

... Thanks? I think? Goddamn it, why does everything that evil old monster says have to come across so goddamned creepy?

"It might be worth our time to keep the Anarch woman afloat anyway," Lisbeth cut in, much more pragmatically, though she did look mildly sympathetic towards me as well. "Having them out there tends to keep people up top a bit more honest. Having an external voice of dissent is useful sometimes. Keeps me from having to do it. Plus, if the Sabbat are coming in force, she does have one of the more mobile and combat-oriented crews in the city. I might be able to plant a suggestion or two that Carrington might want to save Doherty for the finishing blow, and let Myers and Talbot take the brunt in the interim, while we're still gathering information. That way, if we underestimate or overestimate the Sabbat to start out, we'll have something in reserve, and it won't be him with egg on his face for it. It'll be the Anarchs and/or Talbot."

My sire chuckled. "Not sure Talbot'll like that," he noted idly. "Getting hung out to dry, and asked to cooperate with Myers? Not sure he'll like that at all. Might go over our heads for it, too. He has his own supporters up top, and Sabbat's enough of a threat he could push through."

"... I don't think so," I said. Slowly-like, but I meant it. I mean, I'm not always the best judge of character, but Talbot hadn't struck me that way. An' there was the kid, too. "He'll want to try'n prove himself first, I think. He'll want to show he can be trusted with the flank. Plus, he's a bit old fashioned some ways. I think he'll want to protect his turf himself first, if he can, rather than cryin' home for help. He's got pride that way. An' he'll want to keep the Sheriff away from his kid. The Prince already knows about that, or'll be able to guess shortly enough, but if Talbot can try and make sure it ain't the Prince's problem, I think he'll go for that."

"... I can see that," my sire agreed, clicking through his cheek thoughtfully again. "Yeah. Got pride like that, I think you're right there. Don't know as I'd bet on his loyalty to his kid, but he has got pride, right enough. Won't want to look weak, like he needs help. Might cooperate with Myers for that. Buy himself time to straighten his turf out, get all his ducks lined up so he don't look quite the easy target the Sabbat seem to think he is."

"There's risk to that, though," Lisbeth mused. "Carrington mightn't want to let him try it. Just in case he succeeds. Just in case he _does_ wind up looking capable of holding the flank. Talbot's young for that kind of power, and pushing some too. _Gently_ , but he is. Carrington mightn't want to give him the chance."

"Talbot can play that," I said. And then, a bit more hesitantly: "At least, I reckon he can. I ain't seen him up top, I've only seen what he does down street level, but he's good at talking people around. He don't lean too heavy, like a lotta people. He's got a way of makin' things sound reasonable, even when they ain't."

"Like getting a sharp young man so turned around he walks out without gettin' paid," my sire interjected, nodding sagely. I flinched, and ducked my head in shame. He chuckled softly and elbowed me again. "Nah, don't worry, kid. I'll sort that for ya, don't you worry. Was thinkin' on payin' the man a visit anyway, if he's gonna try'n poach my childe out from under me, and send me a message an' all about it. I'll pick you up something while I'm there. Was, what? Two nights work? Plus danger money, 'cause Sabbat. Your rates, that'd be what? Hundred dollars or so? Say we make it two. For the insult."

I stared at him. "You ain't gonna rob _Aaron Talbot_ for me just 'cause I got turned around!" I said. Well. Squawked, really. "I'm gonna hafta _work_ with him later!"

" _Are_ you now," Marta said. So softly, so lightly, but everybody in the room shut up sharply-like at the sound of it. She leaned forward, and there really are times when the skin don't cover all she is that well. It ain't nothin' _concrete_. It ain't nothin' you can point at. You just look at this little old lady, and some bit of you starts wonderin' what kinda extra ingredients she might be addin' to her cookies. Like _arsenic_ , to pick an example outta the sky. Maybe it's the glint in her eye. She don't look like nothin' safe.

"We're playing this game, are we?" she asked again, looking around at the four of us. "Surface problems, my dears. Surface politics. Surface _wars_ , come to that. We're fairly well armoured down here. If anybody wants some information, we can sell it to them. Drop them a dime, if we need to. Do we really want to do more than that?"

We all looked at each other. Well, Anselma was noddin' along with Marta from the off, but I think we all expected that. It was the rest of us that looked to be thinking about it. Me an' Lisbeth. I'm tellin' ya, I never thought I'd see the night. But maybe I did have more in common with our dear spokesperson than I thought.

"... I don't think we want to drop the Camarilla just yet," Lisbeth said at last. Cautious-like, but fairly determined underneath that. "I know I complain every other night about having to put up with them, but if it's them or the Sabbat I'm going to take them any night. And with a Lasombra in town, it _is_ going to be them or the Sabbat. Unless Michael's Anarch woman pulls an absolute miracle out of her hat, anyway, and I don't think that's particularly likely."

My Anarch woman. Oh boy. Nobody tell Angie she said that, all right? I don't need my head mailed home in a box.

"She's right, Marta," my sire continued. Quiet and gently serious. "You and Anselma have done us a good job, but not all of us are complete tunnel rats yet. For those of us who need to go up top once in a while, it'd be nicer to do so in a Camarilla city than a Sabbat one. Just for my part, I am inclined to stick my nose into things to try and arrange that."

Marta nodded thoughtfully, taking those on board. Then she looked at me, like _I_ was gonna have anything pertinent to say. I ain't even been in this game more'n a coupla years! Don't go lookin' at me to go decidin' policy! She didn't let up, though, and after a very uncomfortable minute or two I broke down and gave her an answer.

"I told Angie'n the kid I'd be around if they needed anythin'," I said. Not askin' or nothin', just sayin'. "I know that ain't none of your concern. I just don't like to break promises before I have to, that's all. If I got an option, I'd like to keep my word."

Marta stared at me for a bit longer. Just to make me squirm, I'm pretty sure. An' then she cackled faintly to herself, put her hands on the arms of her chair, and levered herself slowly and creakingly to her feet. Which is the biggest piece of pantomime I've ever laid eyes on, because I _know_ Marta is strong and limber enough to go around carvin' tunnels and pullin' giant lumps of metal into place to crush anybody who steps in the wrong place at the wrong time. She don't even need the disguise, either! She just likes _playing_ with people.

She looks out for 'em too, though. She looks out for them what's hers. I will never deny her that.

"All right," she said, once she was standing and had everybody's complete attention. She looked around the room once, and nodded. "All right, we'll stay this course for a while. Dawn's not far away. I think you should all stay home for the day. Then tomorrow evening, Lisbeth, you can go start laying groundwork. Try to set it up. If you can't, though, or people start looking at us too much, drop Talbot in it and back off. He can sink or he can swim on his own merits, and his childe along with him. The Myers woman, too. She's lasted as long as she has. She won't go down in the first few blows, that's for sure. Idiot that he is, Carrington probably will realise that. You're not Michael, dear. Don't go sticking your neck out."

"No fear," Lisbeth murmured, and inclined her head. "I'll be careful, Marta. My word on it."

Marta nodded, then looked over at my sire. "Phil, I'm sure you can figure out for yourself what you ought to be doing. Do sort out Talbot on the way, though. I don't like Ventrue thinking they can short-change us on a whim, even if it is the youngest of us. Go put manners on the young whippersnapper, won't you? Maybe pick me up a nice knick-knack while you're at it. I've heard he has good taste."

I buried my face in my hands. Aw hell. Talbot was gonna _murder_ me the next time I had to drop by. He really was.

"Hah! Relax, kid!" My sire nudged my shoulder cheerfully. "This ain't between you an' him. He knows that. He sent me that message of his all personal-like, didn't he? His _regards_. We'll sort things out reasonable, me an' him. One sire to another, that kinda thing. Don't you worry." And to this night, I'm honestly not sure if he meant that to be reassuring or not. 

"You do that, then," Marta carried on, blithely ignoring the pair of us while she turned back to Anselma for a bit. "'Selma and I will try and bulk up the defenses a bit more. Just in case. I've a few things I was thinking of trying anyway." 

She waited for Anselma's nod, and then turned back to me. Smilin' gently. I really need her to stop doing that. 

"That just leaves you then, Michael," she said, and I swear, I tried real, _real_ hard not to feel like a man about to take a long drive off a short pier. Again. "Since you do seem to have volunteered yourself already, and since Lisbeth has already claimed you as our agent in this matter as well ... I'm afraid it does look like you're going to end up on the sharp end. If you don't mind, that is? You've already made a start on liaising with both Talbot and Myers, and Phil did pick you at least in part for your ability to nose around the place. If you wanted to keep down that end of the city for a while, keep an eye on developments with the Sabbat? If we are going to stay up top, we're going to need somebody down that end."

An' it was ... I guess it did feel a bit different to have it _official_ like that. Not just a promise to the kid or to Angie. Or to Talbot for that matter. It was different to make that same promise to the _clan_. But she was right, though. I'd volunteered already, and I guess it weren't nothin' I hadn't been plannin' on doin' from the start. So I nodded.

"Will do," I said. A bit more seriously than I'd planned. "I got Angie keepin' an eye out for me at least a bit. She said she'd drop me a line if she finds anythin'. I'll see about gettin' something a bit better set up as well. Around the edge of the factories especially. There's a coupla abandoned ones across the tracks from Skid Row. If Simon's sire _is_ one of 'em, she seems to like vacant buildings. Might be worth keepin' an eye on, anyway."

"... Not a chance in _fucking hell_." 

An' that was _Anselma_ , and oddly enough I think I was the only one surprised by it. She stood up across the way, uncoiled herself up outta her armchair to come stalking over to me, and I do think I was the only one blinking stupidly up at her. Everyone else looked to be hidin' smiles behind their hands all of a sudden.

"He goes down there the way he is now, he's dead inside ten seconds," 'Selma hissed out, turning from me to glare at Marta for a bit. "He's _Phil's_. Sure he can talk to rats a treat, but he couldn't throw a proper punch to save his life! _Literally_. He ain't goin' _nowhere_ near a Lasombra until I can trust him to keep himself properly hidden or at the very least leg it efficiently when he has to. Because he _will_ have to."

Marta beamed brightly at her. So did my sire, for that matter. I was still too busy starin'.

"Are you volunteering, my dear?" Marta asked lightly. Smugly. Just a touch. Either Anselma was used to that or she just didn't give a shit at that point. 

"Do I have a choice?" she asked snidely. "The other option is him getting dusted inside his first night. _One_ of us is going to have to show him how to take care of himself, if he's not going to be down here where I can do it for him."

I opened my mouth at that. Anselma glared at me. I closed my mouth again.

"He's not bad at hiding," my sire piped up. Presumably helpfully. "Or tailing either. I mean, it only got him killed the once. I'm sure he'll be fine."

For a change in my ... early morning, by this stage, I stared at _him_ for a bit instead. Gee thanks, sir. Real nice of ya, that. 

"I'm sure he could use a bit of extra training, though," Marta picked up, nodding sagely over her pearls. "A few obstacle courses. Hide and go seek. Dodging a few of the arrow traps, maybe. It'll be good for the boy. Toughen him up a bit. And if 'Selma does feel like it, I'm sure she could show him the right end of a cleaver to grab hold of as well."

... I gave up. I really did. "You all remember that his knives didn't do Simon one bit of good?" I pointed out, mostly through my fingers again. "An' he _is_ a nasty fighter. At least by Talbot's standards, anyway, but he impressed Angie and Ellie some as well. I think it's a bit late in the game for me to go tryin' to catch up there, don't you?"

"Are you dead yet?" Anselma shot back immediately. _Intensely_ , so that I just shut up and shook my head mutely at her. "Then it's not too late." She paused then, though, and eased up a bit. "Though you have a point. You're missing a lot of the instincts for it. We'll give you some basics, just for emergencies, but run, hide and dodge probably will be our best bets. I wish I could get someone to show you fortitude. If you're not going to dish it out, I'd like you better able to take it. I'm not sure we want Talbot to be paying up that way, though."

My sire clicked his tongue thoughtfully again. "There's a thought," he said. "Not Talbot, no. Things'll be tricky enough around him without owing that kind of favour. I might have a line on that, though. Leave it with me. In the meantime, don't knock the rats. You can do a lot with a few extra eyes close to the ground. Toughen him up a bit, 'Selma, but do let him loose to do his thing as well. I think he might surprise you. He did me, once upon a time."

"I'm not plannin' on bein' _brave_ or anything over here," I reassured hastily. "I mean, I know you all think I'm soft in the head _and_ the heart, but I do have _some_ sense of caution. I wasn't planning to go swanning up to anybody."

Anselma snorted at that, unimpressed. "No, you just walked into a Brujah bar and told them upfront that one of their biggest enemies sent you. Because that was sensible. Not to mention telling the truth straight to a Ventrue's face, _after_ giving him a nice and easy cover for getting rid of you. Because _that_ was sensible too."

"Hey!" I said, probably not entirely sensibly either. Because, well, she did have a point. Still though. "I ran away when I thought you were a Lasombra, didn't I? Or I tried to, anyway. I promise I'm plenty cowardly over here!"

I mean, I am. I really am. Nice and cautious-like, that's me. I just try'n do what I'm there to do at the same time, that's all. Duck-and-sidle, talk fast when you have to, and if all else fails throw yourself out a window and see how far away it gets ya. I'm a gumshoe. Trust me when I say I'm real, _real_ good at duckin' for cover when it comes to it.

But, apparently, that wasn't good enough with Sabbat in town. Which, let's be honest, probably was a fair point. If I was gonna be pokin' around the sharp end, it probably wouldn't do me any harm to get in some practice gettin' the hell outta dodge against someone who genuinely wasn't tryna kill me. Most of the time. Wasn't tryna kill me, _most of the time_. I wasn't promisin' nothing if she was actually tryna teach me. I liketa think I'm a fast learner, but somethin' tells me Anselma's nearly as quick on the draw as Angie would be, and packs at least as much of a punch as well.

Come to think of it, they should probably meet some time. Anselma an' Angie. That'd be ...

A very, very bad plan. Very bad plan. For god's sake, Mike, go to _sleep_.

Anyway. Yeah. I guess my point at the end of that is, people are what they are. I don't even mean Kindred. People are people, regardless of what kinda monster went an' made 'em. Me, I'm a gumshoe. I ain't a hatchetman, an' I ain't a politician, an' no matter what anybody says I ain't no bleedin' heart either.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes, no matter who ya are or what ya are, you maybe find yourself havin' to colour outside the lines a little bit. Just to stay alive, yeah? Just to do what needs doing. And, comes down it, maybe that ain't no bad thing either. Uncomfortable, in places. Lethal in others. But not, at the end of the day, a bad thing.

Or at least that's what I tell myself, anyway, when I'm busy tryin' not to get my head kicked in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this may be the last of this for a while. Heh. I'm a bit pooped.


End file.
